4. Using metadata to describe training materials

Description

Metadata can be defined as data used to describe other data. That other data is complete on its own even without the metadata; however, the metadata makes it easier, for instance, to quickly grasp what that other data is about and to establish some common parameters that can be used to find and compare similar data, even if you have no access to that other data. This chapter will focus on explaining how to annotate training materials and events with rich metadata to improve their Findability, Interoperability, and Reusability.

1. Minimum, Understand - Explain the concept of metadata

2. Minimum, Understand - Explain the relevance of metadata to FAIR Training Materials

3. Minimum, Remember - Identify metadata standards used in your communities/institutions to annotate training materials

4. Recommended, Apply - Describe their training materials with a metadata standard suitable for their domain/discipline (note: from the point of view of content, this could be a LE. bring your TrM, and structure/insert/compile the metadata)

5. Optional, Understand - Explain the concept of structured metadata

Prerequisites

• Understand what is FAIR and why to use it as explained in Chapter 1: Why FAIR training & training materials?

Introduction to metadata

(Minimum, Understand: Explain the concept of metadata ) Metadata can be defined as data used to describe other data. That other data is complete on its own even without the metadata; however, the metadata makes it easier, for instance, to quickly grasp what that other data is about and to establish some common parameters that can be used to find and compare similar data, even if you have no access to that other data. As examples might be easier to grasp than definitions, let’s have a look at a couple of metadata examples: * You look at a can (data) of a new beverage and later comment this with a friend who wants to know more. You do not remember the name (metadata) of the beverage, but you tell your friend about the height and colours of the can (metadata). Your friend quickly realises what that new beverage is as she has already tried it out. * You can read, enjoy and learn from a book (data) even if you do not know the title, the author, or the date it was printed (metadata). However, if you really like that book and know the name of the author, you can also find other books by the same author. * You look for a film (data) in your preferred browser. As you know the title (metadata) you can easily find not only the film (access is restricted to those renting the film) but information about the director and the actors, and even a summary of the plot (more metadata). * You are interested in finding concerts happening during summer. You go to your preferred browser and use some keywords (metadata) to find some concerts close to your city.

Most likely, you have already used metadata without even noticing it!

Why do we need to describe training materials with metadata?

(Minimum, Understand Explain the relevance of metadata to FAIR Training Materials)

Metadata will improve F, I, R

Metadata for training materials

(Minimum, Remember: Identify metadata standards used in your communities/institutions to annotate training materials)

Metadata will help us describe our training materials, but what metadata should we use? If we all decide on our own what metadata we want to use and how it will look in its machine-readable version (i.e., structured metadata via schemas), we will end up with so many ways to refer to what should be common ground (so we understand better each other, humans and machines). Rather than going on your own, we recommend you find and follow a metadata standard used by your community (e.g., trainers in general or trainers in your field and/or in your institute). We are aware of a couple of communities working on training materials and supporting metadata for them; they are GOBLET, ELIXIR Training Platform (particularly the FAIR Training Focus Group) and the Research Data Alliance via its Education and Training on Handling of Research Data Interest Group (RDA-ETHRD-IG).

Metadata in action - case studies

Metadata in action - hands-on

Further reading about structured metadata

(Optional, Understand: Explain the concept of structured metadata)

If you are here, you want to know a bit more on how machines communicate with each other. As we said before, while free text is enough for humans, more structured data (and metadata) works better with machines. Data can be structured in many ways (most of them also outside the scope of this book). We will focus on the sort of metadata using sentences to describe things in a light way, i.e., metadata schemas. There is still much more around this topic including semantics, controlled vocabularies, terminologies and ontologies, all of that outside the scope of this book.

Resources and references

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