Assessment:Metadata

DLF Assessment Interest Group: Metadata Working Group

(Metadata Assessment Working Group)

This group is open to anyone who is interested in taking part. There are no minimum or membership requirements, though we hope you’ll take as active a part as you’re able and willing.

The Metadata Assessment Working Group aims to build guidelines, best practices, tools and workflows around the evaluation and assessment of metadata used by and for digital libraries and repositories. The group hopes to offer deliverables and recommendations that digital library and repository users can implement for metadata assessment and metadata quality control.

This group should not focus on prescriptive recommendations for metadata (using one schema versus another, or comparisons of controlled vocabularies, etc.), but rather how (both functionally and to what metrics) to measure, evaluate and assess the metadata as it exists in a variety of digital library systems. Future work could lend itself to then using that assessment work to decide a pathway for metadata enhancement.

Get Involved

• The Metadata Working Group will primarily communicate through the DLF AIG Metadata Working Group Google Group.

• The majority of the work for 2016 was done in a Google Drive folder, which as been moved to a shared drive (accessible to members of the Google Group).
• Joining the Google Group also gives you access to shared documents and meeting minutes, if you want to stay up-to-date but cannot attend all of the meetings

• You can also join the Assessment Interest Group Slack workspace. There is a channel for the Metadata Interest Group where you can post any questions you may have.

• Additionally, we have a significant portion of our work in our public-facing GitHub website.

• This wiki page will be used to shared static information - meeting times, decided deliverables and goals for the year, etc.

Metadata Working Group Meetings

We have working meetings every 2-4 weeks from January or February through DLF Forum in November. The meetings will take place on Thursdays at 1:15 PM Eastern/10:15 AM Pacific. Agendas contain connection information and the plan for the meeting; they are available in the Google Group Drive and are sent to the Google Group beforehand.

Upcoming Meeting Schedule
All meetings are held at 1:15 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern / 12:15 pm - 1 pm Central / 11:15 am - 12 pm Mountain / 10:15 am - 11 am Pacific

Meeting dates TBD for 2025

Current Projects

Deliverables

• GitHub infrastructure / organization
• Public-facing website & projects:

• Metadata assessment, evaluation and ‘quality’ environmental scan. First created in 2016, updated in 2019.
• A framework for assessing descriptive metadata in digital collections.
• Metadata Application Profile (MAP) Clearinghouse
• Metadata assessment tools list
• A survey of metadata assessment and metadata quality practices among various libraries, archives, and museums. (Analysis ongoing)
• A framework for a workshop on metadata analysis
• Skill-building resources related to metadata analysis technologies and techniques

• Zotero group for metadata assessment publications

2025 Work & Goals

Meeting participants will discuss potential work and priorities during the kick-off meeting(s) TBD, based on the 2025 planning document.

Ongoing projects:

• Managing website text and resources (including the MAP Clearinghouse, tools repository, and skill-building resources)
• Benchmarking for metadata quality

Previous Work

2024 Work & Goals

• Overall maintenance on website and public-facing information

• Addition of an Acronyms page for digital-library-related acronyms and initialisms

• Progress on metadata quality benchmarks including internal and external feedback on drafts

2023 Work & Goals

Highlights:

• Providing public-facing information

• Addition of Skillbuilding Resources to the website
• Blog posts on Five Tips for Rapid Metadata Assessment and case studies related to authority control

• Further work toward drafting quality benchmarks
• Started compiling a glossary of terms and acronyms related to digital libraries

2022 Work & Goals

See the 2022 work plan document for more information. (Note that supplemental documents linked from the work plan limit access to members of the group.)
Here are some of the things that were done during 2022:

• Updates to the group website format and information, including:

• Migration of the Metadata Application Profile Clearinghouse
• Migration of the Tools Repository to the website

• Blog posts about metadata assessment topics
• Information gathering about metadata assessment resources & tutorials
• iPres paper and presentation about the Metadata Quality Benchmarks work

2021 Work & Goals

We had our kick-off meeting on January 21, 2021. The group set some initial goals for immediate work, documented in our 2021 work plan:

• Publish posts on the DLF News/Blog roughly once per month announcing the group's work or discussing related topics

• Posts during 2021:

• Metadata during COVID
• What is Metadata Assessment?
• Case Studies: Metadata Assessment

• During the spring, finish website changes already identified or started in 2020

• Reorganize links and info about projects/resources
• Establish review & update cycles
• Clarify information about specific tasks under "participation"

• Review and complete the spreadsheet categorizing tools

• Determine format and where it should live

2020 Work & Goals

We set directions, deliverables, and goals for 2020 at the kick-off meeting in January 2020.

• High-priority work:

• Update for Environmental Scan from 2016
• Benchmarks white paper based on 2019 survey (published in May 2020)

• Medium-priority work:

• Determine how to update/manage Metadata Application Profile Clearinghouse

• Lower-priority work:

• Tools repository updates/changes
• General website maintenance

2019 Work & Goals

We set directions, deliverables, and goals for 2019 at the 2019 kick-off meeting in January 2019.
The goals for 2019, set in our kick-off meeting, include:

• Website restructuring and documentation
• Continue work towards creating a metadata analysis tools repository
• Maintenance and promotion of past projects
• Collaborate with other AIG Groups
• Continue work on survey benchmarking metadata quality

2018 Work & Goals

We set directions, deliverables, and goals for 2018 at the 2018 kick-off meeting in January 2018. More about the group's goals and discussion for 2018

The goals for 2018, set in our kick-off meeting, include:

• Restructure and document the MWG website
• Review and revise the Metadata Analysis Workshop
• Work towards creating a metadata analysis tools repository
• Begin discussion on creating general benchmarks for metadata quality. This area of work may include gathering tools and methods for measurement of metadata quality, defining benchmarks, and establishing a platform for topic discussion

2017 Work & Goals

We set directions, deliverables, and goals for 2017 at the 2017 kick-off meeting in January 2017. YMore about the group's goals and discussion for 2017

The goals for 2017, set in our kick-off meeting, included:

• Update structure of the Github site created for last year’s Environmental Scan to support expansion and ongoing work including creating mechanism for people to submit updates & feedback.
• Review and expand list of metadata assessment tools gathered as part of the Environmental Scan. Begin testing tools gathered as part of the Environmental Scan in order to eventually create a repository for metadata assessment tools
• Create a Metadata Application Profile Clearinghouse that can be used as a community repository for application profiles, mappings and guidelines for metadata.
• Create a general framework document on how to assess metadata that can be used for the galleries, libraries, archives & museums (GLAM) community.
• Collaborate with other institutions on metadata assessment and analysis workshop work.

2016 Work & Goals

The 2016 goals, aims, and deliverables of the Metadata Assessment Working Group were decided in the 2016 kickoff meeting by participants. Goals included:

• setting up and testing the Metadata Assessment Working Group infrastructure & logistics;
• pulling together resources and ideas for definitions & metrics for metadata assessment, as well as beginning to uncover how one would perform this assessment;
• generating use cases for metadata assessment functionalities;
• uncovering tools that exist for metadata assessment, including how to use and understand the results

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