Kildemetadatakuratering

Kildemetadatakuratering is the systematic process of organizing, validating, and maintaining metadata that describes data sources. The aim is to improve the discoverability, interoperability, and governance of data assets by ensuring accurate context and provenance are available to users and systems.

Metadata typically covers descriptive information (title, creator, abstract), administrative details (license, access rights, preservation status), technical aspects (format, size, technical requirements), and provenance and lineage (where data came from, how it has been transformed, version history). This information helps users understand what the data represents and under what conditions it can be used.

The workflow usually includes inventorying data sources, extracting metadata from sources or entering it manually, normalizing terms to controlled vocabularies, and linking records to a catalog. It also involves ongoing validation, quality checks, and periodic enrichment as new information becomes available, with change management to track updates to metadata and data lineage.

Standards and frameworks support interoperability, such as Dublin Core, schema.org, and DataCite for identifiers; Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) for cataloging, and provenance models like PROV-O and preservation frameworks like PREMIS. Mapping metadata to these standards enables sharing and integration across systems and institutions.

Responsibilities typically involve data stewards, librarians, IT staff, and data owners. Organizations establish policies for metadata scope, versioning, access control, and audit trails to ensure accountability and sustainability of metadata over time.

Benefits include easier data discovery, improved reproducibility, and better compliance with data governance requirements. Challenges include resource demands, keeping metadata current across diverse sources, and achieving consistent mapping and quality across heterogeneous systems. Kildemetadatakuratering is commonly applied in research data repositories, digital libraries, and enterprise data catalogs to provide reliable context for data products and support data-driven workflows.