3 minute read.Why metadata matters for research integrity: a new joint guide from Crossref and DataCite
Preserving the integrity of the scholarly record is an important component of the overall endeavour to protect research integrity. Open scholarly infrastructure enables persistent recording of research objects and associated metadata, which provides an evidence trail for these objects for all in the research community. Crossref and DataCite – as providers of essential infrastructure for preservation of the scholarly record – we share our joint expertise in the new guide on “Why metadata matters for research integrity and how to contribute”.
Both our organisations enable our members to share metadata about the research outputs, resources, and activities that they produce and steward. That metadata about scholarly outputs provides important information about them, which can help evidence integrity. To highlight how and which elements in the Crossref and DataCite metadata schemas support this endeavour, we are excited to make our new guide, available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo19695957.
This joint guide offers practical information for all stakeholders in the scholarly ecosystem about the different metadata elements supported by Crossref and DataCite that can help in assessing the integrity of the scholarly record. With growth in the type and complexity of research outputs over the years, there is also a growing need to be able to ascertain the trustworthiness of research outputs. Metadata directly supports this function. Creators and stewards of research outputs can provide metadata about the content that they produce, including information on who authored the work, who funded it, which other works it cites, whether it was updated after publication, how it relates to other items in the research ecosystem, and more. This guide lists out the metadata elements that capture this information in the Crossref and DataCite metadata schemas and the important role played by each of them in assessing integrity and rigour. We hope that by knowing more about the applications of metadata for preserving the integrity of the scholarly record, prospective authors, researchers, publishers, repositories, integrators, and funders will be encouraged to contribute rich and accurate metadata when registering DOI records.
This information can also be leveraged by researchers and users of metadata who are looking to incorporate open metadata into their tools and analyses. All of the metadata in Crossref and DataCite can be accessed via open APIs and public data files. This guide contains details of what each of the metadata elements can be used for, helping you to identify the right data that you need for your analyses of interest, such as looking at citation patterns, network analysis, and other research integrity trends.
As you read through this guide, please share your feedback and any questions that you may have via the Crossref community forum.
