Building a Disciplinary Metadata Standards Directory

Abstract

The Research Data Alliance (RDA) Metadata Standards Directory Working Group (MSDWG) is building a directory of descriptive, discipline-specific metadata standards. The purpose of the directory is to promote the discovery, access and use of such standards, thereby improving the state of research data interoperability and reducing duplicative standards development work.

This work builds upon the UK Digital Curation Centre's Disciplinary Metadata Catalogue, a resource created with much the same aim in mind. The first stage of the MSDWG's work was to update and extend the information contained in the catalogue. In the current, second stage, a new platform is being developed in order to extend the functionality of the directory beyond that of the catalogue, and to make it easier to maintain and sustain. Future work will include making the directory more amenable to use by automated tools.