Metadata Working Group 3: Coordination of Metadata Creation

Metadata Working Group 3:  Coordination of Metadata Creation
Session Leader(s): Marc McGee

Agenda:
Discuss how best to coordinate metadata creation efforts
Identify shared tool for tracking/coordinating metadata creation/data loading
Tools for exchanging metadata

Resources:
Tufts data tracking spreadsheet: http://bit.ly/1fZW0Jq
and guide: http://bit.ly/1acy9ns

Session notes:

Original idea was a google spreadsheet but that never got any momentum & never found a better tool

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Tufts has a tracking template that they use, natalie will introduce it as a jumping off point for discussion

This is available on the wiki

Inventory tab

color coding to indicate status – in progress, done, about to be started

QA Status

file system location

Priority

Metadata tab: Intensive tracking of who is responsible for each step & who checks each step

QA tab used to track individual issues with metadata records

Ingest tab to record problems with that process

This process is backed up with a lot of emails, meetings, & other communication

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How does this connect with collaborative collection development

How long are we willing to wait for an institution to finish the metadata we are waiting for

There may be a regional aspect to this

Q: Would this be at a collection level or individual layer?

A: Probably at the collection level, especially for publicly accessible layers.  At least we start with public data

Really looking for something to act as a flag

Would institutions be willing to commit to tracking metadata creation?

Q: How far in advance would you anticipate tracking?

A: For metadata creation, just when you are about to start creating it.  But it is an important question that again gets into duplication of data.

Q: So is this a general issue across the community or is it just something unique to Harvard MIT Tufts because we collect so much of the same data?

A: Not necessarily a regional thing.  Could be useful across the board.  Especially for that damn india data that we all have.

Google spreadsheet is an adequate tool at this point.

What happens when it is done?  Does it stay in the spreadsheet when the data is loaded? Perhaps keep an archive spreadsheet to see what was done recently?

But step one in the metadata creation manual is to search to see if it has already been created.

Any use in creating a stub record?  Perhaps not because it needs to be suppressed from the public.

Really want to know only what is immediately pending to save time and share the burden.  So the archive might not be needed. Don’t want to search two places

Option: planned acquisition record

Can the google doc be set up with different views to see only a single institutions records.

ACTION ITEM: Build the google spreadsheet to track metadata creation

TIMELINE:  in two weeks November 12

WHO: Natalie & Alex

Open it up to government agencies?  There might be interest especially with local governments.

Other topics:

Metadata workshops/webinars.  Make them practical, not abstract. There are some out there that were created for EPA.  Also NOAA would be a good group to contact about this – working on FGDC & ISO & conversion between the two.

Outreach to/contact with FGDC

Action Items

ACTION ITEM: Build the google spreadsheet to track metadata creation

TIMELINE:  in two weeks November 12

WHO: Natalie & Alex