3,127
Views
29
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Metadata Quality Control in Digital Repositories and Collections: Criteria, Semantics, and Mechanisms

&
Pages 696-715
Received 01 Apr 2010
Accepted 01 Jun 2010
Published online: 23 Sep 2010
 

This article evaluates practices on metadata quality control in digital repositories and collections using an online survey of cataloging and metadata professionals in the United States. The study examines (1) the perceived importance of metadata quality, (2) metadata quality evaluation criteria and issues, and (3) mechanisms for building quality assurance into the metadata creation process. The survey finds wide recognition of the essential role of metadata quality assurance. Accuracy and consistency are prioritized as the main criteria for metadata quality evaluation. Metadata semantics greatly affects consistent and accurate metadata application. Strong awareness of metadata quality correlates with the widespread adoption of various quality control mechanisms, such as staff training, manual review, metadata guidelines, and metadata generation tools. And yet, metadata guidelines are used less frequently as a quality assurance mechanism in digital collections involving multiple institutions.

This study is supported through an Early Career Development Award (2006–2010) from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. We thank the editor and reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. Sarah Currier, “Metadata Quality in E-Learning: Garbage in—Garbage out?” Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards, April 2, 2004, http://assessment.cetis.ac.uk/content2/20040402013222 (accessed March 26, 2010).

2. Sarah L. Shreeves, Jenn Riley, and Liz Milewicz, “Moving towards Shareable Metadata,” First Monday 11, no. 8 (2006), http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1386/1304/ (accessed February 9, 2010).

3. Jung-ran Park, “Metadata Quality in Digital Repositories: A Survey of the Current State of the Art,” Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 47 (2009): 213–228.

4. Ibid.

5. Diane Hillmann, Naomi Dushay, and Jon Phipps, “Improving Metadata Quality: Augmentation and Recombination,” International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, October 11–14, 2004, 7, http://dcpapers.dublincore.org/ojs/pubs/article/view/770/766 (accessed March 26, 2010).

6. Marieke Guy, Andy Powell, and Michael Day, “Improving the Quality of Metadata in Eprint Archives,” Ariadne 38 (2004), http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue38/guy/ (accessed February 11, 2010); International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, Statement of International Cataloguing Principles (The Hague: IFLA, 2009), http://www.ifla.org/files/cataloguing/icp/icp_2009-en.pdf (accessed March 26, 2010).

7. NISO Framework Working Group, A Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections, 3rd ed. (Baltimore: National Information Standards Organization, 2007), http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/framework3.pdf (accessed March 26, 2010).

8. Park, “Metadata Quality in Digital Repositories,” 217–221.

9. Thomas R. Bruce and Diane Hillmann. “The Continuum of Metadata Quality: Defining, Expressing, Exploiting,” in Metadata in Practice, ed. Diane Hillmann and E. L. Westbrooks (Chicago: American Library Association, 2004), 238–256.

10. Besiki Stvilia et al., “A Framework for Information Quality Assessment,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 58 (2007): 1720–1733; Sarah J. Currier et al., “Quality Assurance for Digital Learning Object Repositories: Issues for the Metadata Creation Process,” ALT-J Research in Learning Technology 12 (2004): 5–20; Jeffrey Beall, “Metadata and Data Quality Problems in the Digital Library,” Journal of Digital Information 6, no. 3 (2005), http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/view/65/68 (accessed March 26, 2010); Lloyd Sokvitne, “An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Current Dublin Core Metadata for Retrieval” (paper presented at VALA [Victorian Association for Library Automation] 2000, Melbourne, Australia, February 16–18, 2000), http://www.vala.org.au/vala2000/2000pdf/Sokvitne.PDF (accessed March 26, 2010).

11. Park, “Metadata Quality in Digital Repositories,” 221.

12. Priscilla Caplan, Metadata Fundamentals for All Librarians (Chicago: American Library Association, 2003), 78–79; Jung-ran Park, “Semantic Interoperability across Digital Image Collections: A Pilot Study on Metadata Mapping,” in Data, Information, and Knowledge in a Networked World, ed. Liwen Vaughan (proceedings of the 2005 annual conference of the Canadian Association for Information Science, London, Ontario, Canada, June 2–4, 2005), http://www.cais-acsi.ca/proceedings/2005/park_J_2005.pdf (accessed March 26, 2010); Jung-ran Park, “Semantic Interoperability and Metadata Quality: An Analysis of Metadata Item Records of Digital Image Collections,” Knowledge Organization 33 (2006): 20–34.

13. Jane Greenberg et al., “Author-Generated Dublin Core Metadata for Web Resources: A Baseline Study in an Organization,” Journal of Digital Information 2 (2001): 1–10.

14. Rachel Heery, “Metadata Future: Steps toward Semantic Interoperability,” in Metadata in Practice, ed. Diane Hillmann and E. L. Westbrooks (Chicago: American Library Association, 2004), 257–271.

15. Rachel Heery and Manjula Patel, “Application Profiles: Mixing and Matching Metadata Schemas,” Ariadne 25 (2000), http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue25/app-profiles/ (accessed February 3, 2010); Diane I. Hillmann and Jon Phipps, “Application Profiles: Exposing and Enforcing Metadata Quality,” in Proceedings of the International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications, August 27–31, 2007, Singapore (Singapore: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative and National Library Board Singapore, 2007): 53–62, http://www.dcmipubs.org/ojs/index.php/pubs/article/viewFile/41/20 (February 3, 2010); Jung-ran Park and Caimei Lu, “An Analysis of Seven Metadata Creation Guidelines: Issues and Implications” (paper presented at 2008 Annual ER&L [Electronic Resources & Libraries] Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, March 18–21, 2008); Park and Tosaka, “Metadata Creation Practices.”

16. Jane Greenberg, Kristina Spurgin, and Abe Crystal, Final Report for the AMeGA (Automatic Metadata Generation Applications) Project (2005), http://www.loc.gov/catdir/bibcontrol/lc_amega_final_report.pdf (accessed March 26, 2010); Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, “DCMI Tools and Software,” http://dublincore.org/tools/ (accessed March 26, 2010); Marek Hatala and Steven Forth, “A Comprehensive System for Computer-Aided Metadata Generation” (paper presented at the WWW 2003 Conference, Budapest, Hungary, May 20–24, 2003); Kris Cardinaels, Michael Meire, and Erik Duval, “Automating Metadata Generation: The Simple Indexing Interface” (paper presented at the 14th International World Wide Web Conference, Chiba, Japan, May 10–14, 2005); Y. Li, C. Dorai, and R. Farrell, “Creating Magic: System for Generating Learning Object Metadata for Instructional Content” (paper presented at the 13th ACM International Conference on Multimedia, Singapore, November 6–11, 2005); G. W. Paynter, “Developing Practical Automatic Metadata Assignment and Evaluation Tools for Internet Resources” (paper presented at the 5th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Denver, CO, June 7–11, 2005); Michael Meire, Xavier Ochoa, and Erik Duval, “SAMgI: Automatic Metadata Generation v2.0” (paper presented at the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, Vancouver, Canada, June 25, 2007).

17. University of Houston Libraries Institutional Repository Task Force, Institutional Repositories, SPEC Kit 292 (Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 2006); Karen Smith-Yoshimura, RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey Results (Dublin, OH: OCLC Programs and Research, 2007), http://www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2007–03.pdf (accessed February 20, 2010); Karen Smith-Yoshimura and Diane Cellentani, RLG Programs Descriptive Metadata Practices Survey Results: Data Supplement (Dublin, OH: OCLC Programs and Research, 2007), http://www.oclc.org/programs/publications/reports/2007–04.pdf (accessed February 20, 2010); Karen Markey et al., Census of Institutional Repositories in the United States: MIRACLE Project Research Findings (Washington, DC: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2007), http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub140/pub140.pdf (February 20, 2010); Jin Ma, Metadata, SPEC Kit 298 (Washington, DC: Association of Research Libraries, 2007); Marcia Lei Zeng, Jaesun Lee, and Allene F. Hayes, “Metadata Decisions for Digital Libraries: A Survey Report,” Journal of Library Metadata 9 (2009): 173–193.

18. Ma, Metadata, 13, 28–30.

19. Zeng, Lee, and Hayes, “Metadata Decisions,” 173–187.

20. Matthias Schonlau, Robert D. Fricker, and Marc N. Elliott, Conducting Research Surveys via E-Mail and the Web (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2002).

21. Jung-ran Park and Yuji Tosaka, “Metadata Creation Practices in Digital Repositories and Collections: Schemata, Selection Criteria, and Interoperability,” Information Technology and Libraries, 29, no. 3 (2010); Jung-ran Park and Caimei Lu, “Application of Semi-Automatic Metadata Generation in Libraries: Types, Tools, and Techniques,” Library & Information Science Research 31 (2009): 225–231; Jung-ran Park, Yuji Tosaka, and Caimei Lu, “Locally Added Homegrown Metadata Semantics: Issues and Implications,” in Paradigms and Conceptual Systems in Knowledge Organization: Proceedings of the Eleventh International ISKO Conference, 23–26 February 2010, Rome, Italy. Advances in Knowledge Organization, vol. 12, ed. Claudio Gnoli and Fulvio Mazzocchi (Würzburg [Germany]: Ergon, 2010), 283–290; Jung-ran Park et al., “From Metadata Creation to Metadata Quality Control: Continuing Education Needs among Cataloging and Metadata Professionals,” Journal of Education in Library and Information Science 51, no. 3 (2010): 158–176.

22. Park et al., “From Metadata Creation to Metadata Quality Control,” 169–170.

23. Caplan, Metadata Fundamentals, 5–7.

24. Park and Tosaka, “Metadata Creation Practices in Digital Repositories and Collections.”

25. Jung-ran Park and Eric Childress, “Dublin Core Metadata Semantics: An Analysis of the Perspectives of Information Professionals,” Journal of Information Science 35, no. 6 (2009): 727–739.

26. Ibid., 734.

27. Park and Lu, “An Analysis of Seven Metadata Creation Guidelines”; Park, Tosaka, and Lu, “Locally Added Homegrown Metadata Semantics,” 283–290.

28. Park and Lu, “Application of Semi-Automatic Metadata Generation in Libraries,” 225–231.

29. Jung-ran Park, ed., “Metadata Best Practices: Current Issues and Future Trends,” Journal of Library Metadata 9, nos. 3/4 (2009).

Reprints and Permissions

Please note: We are unable to provide a copy of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or commercial or derivative permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below.

Permission can also be obtained via Rightslink. For more information please visit our Permissions help page.