Disciplinary Metadata Standards

While data curators, and increasingly researchers, know that good metadata is key for research data access and re-use, figuring out precisely what metadata to capture and how to capture it is a complex task. Fortunately, many academic disciplines have supported initiatives to formalise the metadata specifications the community deems to be required for data re-use. This page provides links to information about these disciplinary metadata standards, including profiles, tools to implement the standards, and use cases of data repositories currently implementing them.

For those disciplines that have not yet settled on a metadata standard, and for those repositories that work with data across disciplines, the General Research Data section links to information about broader metadata standards that have been adapted to suit the needs of research data.

Search by Discipline
– Biology,
– Earth Science,
– General Research Data,
– Physical Science,
– Social Science & Humanities.

Search by Resource Type

– Metadata Standards

Specifications for the minimum information that should be collected about research data in order for it to be re-used.
– Profiles and Extensions

Standards that have been adapted for use in particular types of repositories, or for particular types of data.
– Use cases

Institutional repositories and data portals using standards to determine which metadata should be collected upon data deposit.
– Tools

Software that has been developed to capture or store metadata conforming to a specific standard.