This webinar showcased two tools - the NADA Metadata Editor and the DDIwR package - designed to help researchers create good quality FAIR documentation. Videos and slides from the talks by Mehmood Asghar (World Bank) and Adrian Dusa (University of Bucharest) are available below.
About the webinar
Providing good quality documentation that is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) to help others use your data is being increasingly mandated by funders. However, there is still little guidance available on the tools that can help the sole researcher or a small research team do so.
This webinar will introduce two tools – the NADA Metadata Editor and the DDIwR package – which can be easily implemented to both meet funder requirements and provide researchers with the rich metadata needed for using and sharing their data with confidence.
Delegates will hear from Mehmood Asghar (World Bank) and Adrian Dusa (University of Bucharest) showcasing the tools. There will also be time for questions and discussion.
Watch the videos from this webinar
NADA Metadata Editor – Mehmood Asghar (World Bank)
Download the slides: NADA Metadata Editor [PDF]
The Metadata Editor is a web application developed to produce metadata compliant with multiple metadata standards and schemas. It can be used to create metadata that is designed to be imported into widely used NADA catalogue software.
Currently, it supports DDI CodeBook 2.5, Geospatial (ISO19139), Image (IPTC), Dublin Core for Documents and Tables. The application is highly flexible and may in the future accommodate additional standards and schemas.
The Metadata Editor comes with a RESTful API to automate metadata management and create custom workflows such as importing and exporting metadata in bulk, or publishing to NADA based catalogues.
The DDIwR package – Adrian Dusa (Department of Sociology, University of Bucharest)
Download the slides: The DDIwR package [PDF]
In the research world, submitting a dataset to a public repository or data archive requires additional information about the data, most commonly using an XML structure as used by the Data Documentation Initiative. Not all researchers are equally trained or equipped with dedicated XML editing software to create this metadata file, and few are willing to invest a huge effort to document each variable from their research.
The recent version of the command line R package DDIwR is a viable alternative that accomplishes two main things. First, it decreases the effort by more than 90%, importing the dataset and automatically retrieving the relevant variable level metadata. Second, it saves researchers from using XML directly, by providing a series of easy-to-use R commands that gradually build the XML file in a very intuitive way, and even performs a pre-validation check to ensure that all DDI elements are correctly specified.
Further information
If you have any questions or require further information, please contact CLOSER Projects and Events Assistant, Becky England.
CLOSER Data Managers Network
This webinar is organised as part of the CLOSER Data Managers Network which is comprised of professionals working on study data management. The network is open to studies that form part of CLOSER and/or CLOSER Discovery, as well as professionals from the wider data management community.
For more information, or to enquire about joining the CLOSER Data Managers Network, please contact CLOSER Project Officer, Aidan Riley.