Why do researchers need metadata?
Using data without its metadata is like reading a long, complicated book without any punctuation. You have most of the information you need, but not all of it. It’s harder to navigate. You have the terminology, but without the definitions. Metadata is required in order to make sense of this information. Adding metadata is like adding punctuation to the words and having structured metadata is like organising the words in the book into chapters with a content page.
Source: Alan Liu (2014). Digital Humanities. Class notes. [Accessed online] English 149, University of California Santa Barbara
Metadata is hugely important for effective data use as it contains crucial information necessary to exploit the full potential of datasets for research.
Metadata helps you to:
Moreover, researchers can use metadata to gain a more thorough understanding of the data available to them. It provides a way for the original study team, who collected the data, to communicate with researchers using their data at a later stage.
Metadata represent a common mechanism for communication between researchers. It enhances and facilitates the reuse of data. The metadata associated with a dataset allows researchers not involved in the initial collection and interpretation of data to understand what was intended in the original study, what and where the data came from and how the survey was administered.
More technical details are also included in the metadata, including how survey logic (e.g. which participants were required to answer certain questions, and who was required to skip particular questions) was employed and under what conditions, which enables anyone looking at the data to understand the connection between the survey implementation through to the data received.
Ideally, metadata is produced and presented using standardised specifications. This again facilitates the re-use of data, data discovery, data access and the ability to share metadata between communities of researchers.
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