Old:Application Profile Development

STATUS: This page is no longer being maintained and of historical interest only.

This page describes early work on the Dryad application profile. It contains statements that are no longer true and is primarily of historical value.

Introduction
This page describes components of the Dryad Version 1.0 application profile, which is a metadata structure intended for the first phase of the Dryad repository. This metadata structure is part of the Dryad development project and is intended to support data objects hosted by the repository. The Dryad metadata structure is viewed as evolving, and therefore the information on this page will be added to over time.

This application profile has been developed by Dryad team members from the Metadata Research Center and NESCent. Please contact Sarah Carrier (scarrier@email.unc.edu) for specific information about the Dryad Version 1.0 application profile. In addition, an early summary of the project is available here:. The following information is structured similarly to the SWAP application profile, and follows the recommendations of the Dublin Core Singapore Framework.

Scope

 * Metadata
 * In scope: Dublin Core elements and any additional elements from domain-specific namespaces, or namespaces that perform required functions, or provide required services.
 * Out of scope: Metadata formats that do not meet the stated requirements.


 * Identifiers
 * In scope: Use of identifiers to link related resources, use of identifiers for the description itself.
 * Out of scope: Other uses of identifiers.


 * Controlled vocabularies
 * In scope: Ensuring that the application profile supports various means of access, that the process of deposition and metadata creation is eased by the assistance of controlled vocabularies, and that they quality of the metadata is controlled using existing terminologies. Controlled vocabularies within the scope include: classification schemes, controlled vocabularies, and name authority lists.
 * Out of scope: Permanent decisions concerning terminology solutions.


 * Complex objects
 * In scope: Being aware of current work being undertaken in this area, and using existing work to formulate requirements.
 * Out of scope: Decisions on how to model complex objects


 * Citations and references
 * In scope: Bibliographic citations for published articles with underlying datasets hosted by Dryad.
 * Out of scope: Citation analysis, complex bibliometrics.

Stakeholders and designated community

 * Designated community: Researchers in the field of evolutionary biology who are generating data and reusing data for their own projects.
 * Stakeholder community: Evolutionary biologists, journal publishers in the field of evolutionary biology, professional societies in evolutionary biology, and NESCent—a research center for synthetic research addressing fundamental questions in evolutionary biology.

Requirements gathering

 * Methodology: The needs and goals of these individuals and groups identified as stakeholders and community members were identified in a workshop held in December 2006 at NESCent in Durham, North Carolina. Among initial questions addressed at the workshop were: What is the minimum number of metadata elements required? What functions will the Dryad scheme support? Answers to these questions have informed the development of Dryad’s functional requirements and the metadata framework. In addition, the repository development team is currently undertaking two studies intended to assess data sharing attitudes and behaviors: a use case study and an online survey.


 * Scenarios and use case:
 * A user submitting a dataset as a requirement for publication.
 * A user searching for datasets that are applicable to their own research, or for a particular author, in order to use the information for their own project.

Functional requirements specification

 * Computer-aided metadata generation and augmentation.
 * Specialized modules linking publications and underlying datasets.
 * Data and metadata quality control through the integration of manual and automatic techniques.
 * Support for identity, authority and data security.
 * Support for basic metadata repository functions, such as resource discovery, sharing, and interoperability.

Description Set Profile

 * Description Set Profile -- work in progress
 * Please also see the Dublin Core Description Set Profile documentation and the guidelines for application profiles.

Usage guidelines

 * Dryad Version 1.0 Cataloging Guidelines -- work in progress

Application Profile Development Meetings

 * Meetings for metadata and application profile development