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What can I do in practice (even without much prior knowledge) to document data/collect metadata?

Data documentation and metadata are key elements of FAIR research data management (RDM). However, the information available on these topics is often rather theoretical, which makes it difficult for many researchers to apply in practice.

Practical Guide

Practical Guide

Boße et al. (2025): Metadata in agrosystem research practice. Fachrepositorium Lebenswissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.4126/FRL01-006490238

One of FAIRagro's goals is to introduce FAIR RDM methods to the agrosystem research community. Therefore, members from various project areas have come together to create a practical guide1 to collecting metadata in agricultural research.

This practical guide aims to provide an easy and practice-oriented introduction to the world of data documentation. A decision tree guides researchers with simple, practical questions through the topics:

  1. Why data should be documented
  2. Which forms and formats are appropriate for data documentation in your own project
  3. Which metadata should be collected for your own research data
  4. How the metadata can be created
  5. Which forms of storage and linking with the research data should be considered
  6. How the quality of the metadata can be ensured

In addition to the decision tree, this document also contains brief explanations of terms (Appendix I) that should be understood in order to answer the questions in the decision tree meaningfully. In addition, a metadata guide (Appendix II) with many agricultural science examples provides an overview of metadata, metadata schemas, terminologies and various forms of metadata collection and storage.

An interactive version of the decision tree can be found here.

Metadata Guide

Metadata Guide

Boße et al. (2025): Metadata Guide for agrosystem science. Fachrepositorium Lebenswissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.4126/FRL01-006511267

The Metadata Guide2, which forms part of the Practical Guide as Annex II, is also available as a separate publication. It provides an overview of metadata, metadata schemas, terminologies and various forms of metadata collection and storage, using numerous examples from agricultural science.

Contributors

Lucia Vedder ORCID icon, Sophie Boße ORCID icon

(Last Update: 2025-12-19)

How to cite this page?

Vedder, L. & Boße, S. (2025). Practical Guide Metadata. FARagro Knowledge Base. https://knowledgebase.fairagro.net/en/rdm/metadata_guide. Under: CC BY 4.0.

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  1. Boße, S., Rey-Mazón, E., Sennhenn, A., Vedder, L., & Schneider, G. (2025). Metadata in agrosystem research practice. Fachrepositorium Lebenswissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.4126/FRL01-006490238 ↩

  2. Boße, S., Rey-Mazón, E., Sennhenn, A., Vedder, L., & Schneider, G. (2025). Metadata Guide for agrosystem science. Fachrepositorium Lebenswissenschaften. https://doi.org/10.4126/FRL01-006511267 ↩