Why do we need metadata?#
Metadata provides essential context and structure to digital resources, making them easily discoverable, understandable, reusable, and verifiable. It increases searchability, enables proper attribution and citation, ensures reproducibility of research, and preserves the long-term value and significance of resources.
Metadata also supports interoperability between different platforms and systems, facilitates auditing through clear provenance and licensing information, and promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing within and across communities. For better interoperability, Software Heritage has chosen the CodeMeta vocabulary as the metadata standard used for deposit and indexing.
Without metadata, valuable digital resources could quickly become inaccessible, misunderstood, or unusable.
The deposit partner is responsible for the provided metadata, ensuring its accuracy, completeness, and compliance with established standards.
External resources:
Deliverable D4.4: The Research Software MetaData (RSMD) guidelines is a comprehensive set of guidelines aimed at enhancing the findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of research software artifacts. Gruenpeter, Granger et al. (2024). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10786147
Deliverable D6.1 | Report on Standardisation and Curation of Software Metadata and PIDs.: Gruenpeter, Granger et al. (2024). an implementation overview and roadmap of the efforts achieved by infrastructures in the evolving European landscape of research software. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14509418