Because good research needs good data

Disciplinary Metadata

While data curators, and increasingly researchers, know that good metadata is key for research data access and re-use, figuring out precisely what metadata to capture and how to capture it is a complex task. Fortunately, many academic disciplines have supported initiatives to formalise the metadata specifications the community deems to be required for data re-use. This page provides links to information about these disciplinary metadata standards, including profiles, tools to implement the standards, and use cases of data repositories currently implementing them.

For those disciplines that have not yet settled on a metadata standard, and for those repositories that work with data across disciplines, the General Research Data section links to information about broader metadata standards that have been adapted to suit the needs of research data.

Please note that a community-maintained version of this directory has been set up under the auspices of the Research Data Alliance.

Search by Resource Type

Metadata Standards
Specifications for the minimum information that should be collected about research data in order for it to be re-used.
Profiles and Extensions
Standards that have been adapted for use in particular types of repositories, or for particular types of data.
Use cases
Institutional repositories and data portals using standards to determine which metadata should be collected upon data deposit.
Tools
Software that has been developed to capture or store metadata conforming to a specific standard.