A Metadata Application Profile for the DRIADE Project Sarah Carrier, Jed Dube, Jane Greenberg March 13, 2007 _____________________

What is a Metadata Application Profile? “Application profiles consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespace schemas combined together by implementors and optimised for a particular local application.” (Heery and Patel, 2000)  Data Elements: Title, Name, Coverage, Identifier, etc.  Namespace schemas: Dublin Core, Data Documentation Initiative (DDI), Darwin Core, PREMIS, Ecological Metadata Language (EML), etc.

Why create an Application Profile? Single existing schemes are often not sufficient  Dublin Core, DDI, other element sets alone do not cover DRIADE needs We look to supplement Dublin Core with others  But we may not need all elements (e.g. in DDI or PREMIS) We look to other schemes because we don't want to re-invent the wheel

DRIADE’s application profile – combining a range of metadata to effectively support evolutionary biology data and digital repository functions: Object Types: 1.The publication 2.The published piece of data in the publication 3.The dataset behind the published data (supplemental) 4.An initial data source 5.Newly created data (Heterogeneous) Data Types: 1.Structured labeled data 2.Structured unlabeled data 3.Unstructured textual data 4.Unstructured non-textual data Information life cycle: 1.Creation 2.Collection 3.Identification/Organization 4.Rights management 5.Archiving/Preservation 6.Access/Distribution 7.Usage

DRIADE Application Profile Development (1) A multi-methods approach: Requirement assessment: Identified initial goals and functional requirements based on Dec. 5 meeting, plus amalgam of DRIADE team efforts-to-date. Initial questions included: How many elements are needed? What functions will the scheme support? Content analysis: Examined various metadata schemes and employed the content analysis methodology to identify relevant elements.  Which schema is being analyzed and what elements are included?  How is the schema defined?  In what context was the schema designed, and how is it currently applied?  How does the context relate to DRIADE? Crosswalk analysis: Mapped selected elements on spreadsheet for a comparison and selection for the DRIADE application profile. Included examples of element use.

DRIADE Application Profile Development (2) Procedures: 1. Considered Dec.5 th meeting, DRIADE goals, Todd’s demo, data type extraction, keyword sampling,etc. 2. Considered information life-cycle, data object types, data types, metadata life cycle 3. Researched use of standards and recommendations for best practices, case studies 4. Identified potential metadata schemes/elements 5. Developed list of required metadata 6. Mapped required metadata to elements (spreadsheet) 7. Chose elements (Dublin Core where possible--mandatory and required elements from each scheme were considered a priority) 8. Completed Level 1 9. Work ongoing for Level 2

DRIADE Application Profile Level 1 – initial repository implementation  metadata support for preservation, access, and basic usage of data Level 2 – full repository implementation  (Level 1 plus) support for expanded usage, interoperability, preservation, administration, etc. Level 3 – “next generation” implementation  May consider Web 2.0 functionalities

Level 1 Application Profile Name (DC:Creator) Title (DC:Title) Identifier (DC: Identifier) Fixity? (PREMIS) Relation (or Project, or Study) Contributor (DC:Contributor) Contact (DDI ) “Rights” (DC: Rights) Date (DC: Date) Description (DC: Description) “Keyword” (DC: Subject) Data Type (DC: Type) Format (DC: Format) Size? (DC: Format, PREMIS) Software (DDI ) “Locality” (DC: Coverage) “Date Range” (DC:Coverage) Species, or ScientificName (Darwin Core)

Level 2 Application Profile All Level 1 elements, PLUS: Expanded information for preservation More granularity for data description More information about methodology More about known linkages (to publications etc.) Etc.

References Application Profile Spreadsheet: Application Profile Bibliography/References: