Metadata conflicts and their impact on DataCite metadata completeness in disciplinary research data repositories

Abstract

This paper investigates how eight disciplinary research data repositories from the geosciences and social sciences navigate metadata conflicts - conflicts in implementations of the same standard and inter-standard conflicts - and how these conflicts affect the completeness of DataCite metadata. It combines results from analyzing DataCite metadata records, structural differences between three disciplinary metadata schemas and the DataCite Metadata Schema, and a direct comparison of two metadata records describing the same dataset. The results show that both conflicts in implementations of the same standard and inter-standard conflicts contribute to incomplete DataCite metadata. In addition to inherent differences between the metadata schemas, workflows and conscious decisions by the repositories also contribute to these conflicts. Some of these conflicts could be resolved by updated metadata crosswalks, emerging initiatives for retroactive collaborative metadata enrichment, the implementation of metadata application profiles or schema updates. Other conflicts can't be resolved or are strongly connected to the repository mission. The results also highlight that metadata completeness is multifaceted, and assessment requires careful consideration of context.