What is Metadata?
Metadata is the structured knowledge that we have about things researchers collect. To make a collection usable, researchers need to record what is known about the things in the collection and make that knowledge available to others. The record of knowledge about these collections is metadata.
Given the variety of things that can be collected, metadata may take many forms. Metadata can also contain many particular bits of information about the things it describes. For example, a library catalog records one particular sub-set of knowledge about a collection of books; a museum registry records another; a census database records a third; a dictionary records a fourth.
Source: Yale UniversityMetadata Best Practices
The downloads below provide an outline of the best practices for collecting and cataloging metadata and data sets, as well as two blank metadata forms.
For researchers wanting to initiate the metadata generation process for their EPSCoR related data please contact Mike Camponovo or Su Zhang.
