Metadata and the UK Data Archive CESSDA Expert Seminar Odense September 2008 Margaret Ward Lenin Ageer
Capturing metadata Information captured from: Deposit forms: Accompanying documentation Series information (information already held by UKDA) STORE – repository system based on FEDORA
Tools In-house programs used to create the catalogue record Nesstar Publisher used for publishing the Nesstar catalogue entry STORE
Storing metadata Held in SQL relational database Output to XML XML used by NESSTAR XML available to harvesters such as OAI
Standards used: SSD - Standard Study Description Scheme agreed by CESSDA members in the early 1970s DDI – Data Documentation Initiative XML – Extensible Markup Language Dublin Core (metadata standard) OAI – Open Archives Initiative Z39.50 (search protocol)
Maintenance Updates to data = changes to metadata Controlled Vocabularies (dynamic): Names authority lists Subject keywords – HASSET (Humanities and Social Sciences Electronic Thesaurus) Controlled Vocabularies (fixed): Subject categories – in-house schema Elements describing the methodology e.g. method of data collection, sampling, etc.
Presenting information to users A catalogue record is created for each dataset held in the UKDA Virtual catalogue records created for selected data available at other archives or repositories UKDA/ESDS catalogue ESDS Nesstar catalogue Website used for related information – themed pages etc.