Metadata Realities for Cyberinfrastructure: Data Authors as Metadata Creators

Abstract

Cyberinfrastructure systems for digital data will depend on effective ways of creating and sharing metadata. In distributed scientific collaborations, creating and collecting metadata is a significant challenge. Metadata creation is often an unfunded mandate. We present a preliminary study of metadata creation by data authors in a large science and technology research center. We asked researchers to create metadata using the Dublin Core-based metadata fields for inclusion in a center-wide metadata repository. The results of our pilot test indicate that data authors face a number of challenges in creating metadata, including organizing group vs. individual knowledge, adapting an unfamiliar metadata scheme to the specifics of their project, and drawing boundaries between data sets.