METADATA WORKSHOPConclusions

Keith JefferyPeter Wittenburg

Situation• Many research infrastructures

– RIs are expensive in construction and operation• Producing data / information

– Not used as much as should be– By researchers and citizens

• Problem is– Discovery– Contextualisation– Access– Provenance– Utilisation– Preservation

• metadata• One person’s metadata is another person’s data

In the context of fast-increasing data volumes and complexityRequires automation autonomic computing

Situation (2)

• For each RI– Currently developing separately data systems

including metadata– Some commonality within domain – e.g. INSPIRE

(geo-temporal)

• Collecting metadata is expensive and researchers do not like to provide it

Solution• Converge development of metadata to allow

commonality for:– Discovery– Context (research background)– Access (including rights, security, privacy, trust)– Provenance (to aid understanding and trust in quality)– {Utilisation}– Preservation (to ensure available and understandable)

• Utilisation likely to be domain-specific but some commonality e.g. Digital libraries of scholarly publications

Solution (2)• Commonality – that which is horizontal across vertical

RI data/information systems• Metadata with

– Formal syntax (to enable processing)• Attributes of object (describing its properties)• Relationships between objects (roles)• Temporal information (for versioning, provenance)

– Declared semantics (to enable understanding)• Ontologies• Authority files

• (With domain-specific metadata for utilisation)• Good tools for metadata collection– automated and

progressive (workflow) – and use

Way Forward: Questions

• Was it useful to get this community together?

Way Forward: Questions

• Was it useful to get this community together?• Would it be useful to keep this community

together?

Way Forward: Questions

• Was it useful to get this community together?• Would it be useful to keep this community

together?• What should we do together?

– Common approaches / best practice– Development of common standards where

appropriate– Development of tools / services to utilise

standards

Way Forward: Questions• Was it useful to get this community together?• Would it be useful to keep this community together?• What should we do together?

– Common approaches / best practice– Development of common standards where appropriate– Development of tools / services to utilise standards

• How should we do it together?• grass-root analysis of approaches of different communities

• architecture, building blocks and protocols • extracting a kind of reference architecture

• establishing guidelines for metadata • quality • building blocks and protocols• IT principles and solutions• ways of explicit semantics and flexible mapping

• raising awareness and disseminating messages• conferences, workshops, hands-on training courses

• help in finding solutions and setting-up things

Way Forward: Questions• Was it useful to get this community together?• Would it be useful to keep this community together?• What should we do together?

– Common approaches / best practice– Development of common standards where appropriate– Development of tools / services to utilise standards

• How should we do it together?• grass-root analysis of approaches of different communities

• architecture, building blocks and protocols • extracting a kind of reference architecture

• establishing guidelines for metadata • quality • building blocks and protocols• IT principles and solutions• ways of explicit semantics and flexible mapping

• raising awareness and disseminating messages• conferences, workshops, hands-on training courses

• help in finding solutions and setting-up things

• How to fund such activity?– EC FP7 Call 9 1.2.2 bullet 3 (communities-driven policy/services)– Cooperative project or support action?