OMeGA - Open Metadata Generator App

Researchers that adopt Open Research Data (ORD) practices can face obstacles when asked to generate accurate metadata. This project seeks to prototype and test a web-based tool to guide re-searchers through metadata creation.

Introduction

In social sciences, data sharing and ORD are not yet widely practised. Even though re-searchers are generally open-minded towards sharing their data, they lack experience of it. We aim to make a web-based tool of use to researchers in the social sciences in general. It will reduce the barrier to creating detailed and standard-compliant metadata for researchers who have little to no previous expertise or knowledge in this field.

Methodologies

We will develop a web-based tool combining metadata generation with a user interface (UI) in a user-centred design (UCD) . Thanks to our approach and our strong involvement of the research community, the resulting prototype will constitute a major enhancement compared to existing approaches and similar services. The new tool will be capable of handling different metadata standards as well as both qualitative and quantitative research metadata. This contrasts with existing tools that focus on single standards and require a high level of specialised knowledge regarding such standards on the part of the user.