Creating context for the experiment record: user-defined metadata

Abstract

The drive towards more transparency in research and open data increases the importance of being able to find information and make links to the data. Metadata is an essential ingredient for facilitating discovery and is used in Electronic Laboratory Notebooks to curate experiment data and associated entries with descriptive information and classification labels that can be used for aggregation and identification. Machine-generated metadata helps with facilitating metadata exchange and enabling interoperability, but such metadata is not necessarily in a form friendly for the humans that also need it. A survey of metadata usage in an ELN developed at the University of Southampton indicates many users do not use metadata effectively. Whilst some groups are comfortable with metadata and are able to design a metadata structure that works effectively, many users have no knowledge of where to start to define metadata or even an understanding of what it is and why it is useful. The metadata used within the notebooks is dominated by a few categories, in particular materials, data formats, and instruments. Further investigation is under way to determine whether this pattern of metadata use is common in other online environments, whether users are more likely to create certain types of metadata, and whether lessons can be learned from other environments to encourage metadata use. These findings will contribute to strategies for encouraging and improving metadata use in ELNs such as improved interface designs, user education, standard schema designs, and encouraging collaboration between same-discipline groups to promote consistency and best practices.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Cerys Willoughby: orcid.org/0000-0003-1721-9212

ORCID for Jeremy G. Frey: orcid.org/0000-0003-0842-4302

ORCID for Simon J. Coles: orcid.org/0000-0001-8414-9272

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