Towards common recommendations and schema crosswalks across Earth and Environmental Consortia - Metadata Workshop

Metadata Jonas Grieb, Christin Henzen, Claas-Thido Pfaff, Julian Schneider, Emanuel Söding Towards common recommendations and schema crosswalks across Earth and Environmental Consortia Metadata Workshop | Joint Plenary NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity | September 2025 Metadata Workshop Abstract 2 This workshop brought together Earth and environmental science consortia to discuss strategies for metadata harmonization. Building on the current NFDI metadata approaches, we aimed to collect feedback from consortia, identify overlaps and divergences in domainspecific metadata practices, and explore opportunities for alignment. Presentations highlighted ongoing initiatives such as the NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub, FAIRagro Search Hub, and NFDI4Biodiversity SAHIS. A central discussion addressed feedback on the current NFDI metadata strategy as a crucial piece of our NFDI4Earth input/feedback, and ideas and perspectives as partners/neighbouring consortia to spot shared directions and unite efforts toward a thematic metadata initiative. Metadata Workshop Agenda 3 ▪Showcasing existing initiatives ▪FAIRagro Search Hub (Julian Schneider, ZB Med) ▪NFDI4Biodiversity SAHIS (Claas-Thido Pfaff, GFBio) ▪NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub and OneStop4All (Jonas Grieb, SGN) ▪NFDI Task Force Metadata (Emanuel Söding, GEOMAR) ▪Round table discussion ▪Collect your feedback on the current NFDI metadata strategy as a crucial piece of our NFDI4Earth input/feedback ▪Explore your ideas and perspectives as partners/neighbouring consortia to spot shared directions and unite efforts toward a thematic metadata initiative FAIRagro Search Hub 5 ▪Julian Schneider Metadata Workshop @ Joint Plenary 2025 - NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity https://search-hub.fairagro.net NFDI4Biodiversity SAHIS 6 ▪Claas-Thido Pfaff Metadata Workshop @ Joint Plenary 2025 - NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity https://search.gfbio.org/ NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub & OneStop4All 8 ▪A Knowledge Graph about ESS research products ▪Integrates and interlinks metadata ▪Central backbone within the NFDI4Earth developed services Metadata Workshop @ Joint Plenary 2025 - NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity (https://knowledgehub.nfdi4earth.de | https://onestop4all.nfdi4earth.de ) NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub & OneStop4All 9Metadata Workshop @ Joint Plenary 2025 - NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity https://nfdi4earth.de/ontology/ ▪Data model: RDF ▪Resources types ▪Datasets, DataServices (aligned with DCAT) ▪Catalogs/Repositories (based on DCAT+re3data) ▪Publications, Software, LearningResources ▪+ more related entities (organizations, persons, metadata standards …) based on 10 ▪Data model: RDF ▪Database: Openlink Virtuoso (Triple Store) Knowledge Hub Wikidata Zenodo Research Software Directory Earth Data Portal Metadata Standards Catalog RORre3data […] community s ervices & external databases: Harvest metadata ▪Data Population ▪Metadata harvesting ▪Harmonization (NFDI4Earth Ontology) ▪Link discovery Metadata Workshop @ Joint Plenary 2025 - NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity NFDI4Earth Knowledge Hub & OneStop4All NFDI Task Force Metadata NFDI and Metadata The Task Force Metadata of the NFDI section “(Meta)data, Terminologies, Provenance” aims to moderate and coordinate the process of identifying and evaluating existing cross-disciplinary terminologies and metadata schemas as suitable candidates for NFDI-agreed recommendations. The Task Force takes its motivation from the NFDI goals and the strategy of 2025/26 to develop cross-disciplinary metadata standards for the comprehensive (re-)usability of research data. 18 NFDI and Metadata The Task Force Metadata of the NFDI section “(Meta)data, Terminologies, Provenance” aims to moderate and coordinate the process of identifying and evaluating existing cross-disciplinary terminologies and metadata schemas as suitable candidates for NFDI-agreed recommendations. The Task Force takes its motivation from the NFDI goals and the strategy of 2025/26 to develop cross-disciplinary metadata standards for the comprehensive (re-)usability of research data. 19 Note: TF Metadata does NOT aim to develop new metadata standards. We rather build on existing (community) standards, harmonizing common information and support discipline specific aspects. The Workshops ▪Date: 14. - 15.01.2025 ▪Place: TU Dresden ▪Participants: 55 ▪NFDI Consortia present: 26 (all) ▪Methods: World Cafe-Tables, plenary discussions, opinion polls ▪Date: 25. - 26.06.2025 ▪Place: TIB, Hannover ▪Participants: 61 ▪NFDI Consortia present: 25 ▪Methods: Breakout groups, plenary discussions Aims of the TF Metadata Workshops 21 ▪Initiating discussion on agreed metadata kernel profiles based on DCAT, DataCite, schema.org ▪Agree upon core fields for the NFDI Core Metadata Profile as a minimal set of fields ▪Explore and discuss domain-specific schema profiles ▪Define on how to use these agreed-upon core fields for the NFDI Core Metadata Profile Can core schemas be applied in NFDI and how? Goal: The main purpose for common metadata standards is, to be able to exchange data across repositories, thus enabling interdisciplinary interoperability. Why DCAT, DataCite, and schema.org: oOur research showed, that these are the most common “general purpose“ standards currently in use to export / harvest data from repositories. oThere exist good cross-walks between schema.org, DataCite and DCAT (RDA Research Metadata Schemas WG) https://www.rd-alliance.org/groups/research-metadataschemas-wg/outputs/ schema.org Scientific Disciplines closed to each other Consensus finding process across consortia ▪Which metadata “fields” of the core standards are usable/unusable/essential/useless? ▪Which metadata “fields” of the core standards make sense to be used by “all” consortia? ▪Is there a common understanding of what these metadata “fields” mean? ▪Extend expressivity of schemas starting with disciplines close to each other We discuss schemas for interoperability, not internally used schemas ! schema.org Scientific Disciplines closed to each other Voting Results 2nd NFDI Metadata Workshop 24 (n=41) Main conclusions ▪All consortia were familiar with at least one of the standards, thus DCAT, DataCite, and schema.org seem to offer a shared baseline for publishing dataset information. ▪While no single schema fits all needs, most consortia can implement export functions for at least one of these with minimal effort. 25 What is re3data 26 Re3data •is a global registry of research data repositories •covers all academic disciplines •presents repositories and portals for the permanent storage and access of research data sets to researchers, funding bodies, publishers and scholarly institutions. •promotes a culture of sharing, increased access and better visibility of research data PROBLEM: a lot of the information in re3data is outdated. 33 ▪Feedback to NFDI TF Recommendation: ▪Fits to the attendances’ scope ▪More specific use cases, e.g., reusability ▪For NFDI4Earth: we additionally need … ▪Recommendations on granularity -> core profile ▪Improved metadata curation (move towards structural metadata to improve reusability) ▪Follow-ups via Knowledge Hub Group Metadata Workshop @ Joint Plenary 2025 - NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity Summarizing our discussion Thank You ! https://www.nfdi4earth.de/ https://www.nfdi4earth.de/ https://www.nfdi.de/ through project no. 460036893 within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI, https://www.nfdi.de/). Jonas Grieb ([email protected]), Christin Henzen ([email protected]), Emanuel Söding ([email protected]) Metadata Workshop @ Joint Plenary 2025 - NFDI4Earth meets NFDI4Biodiversity