What does "metadata quality" mean to you?

CKAN Standards & Interoperability
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When we asked folks about what they wanted to discuss on this forum, metadata quality was one of the more commonly raised topics. I’ve been thinking on this, and wanted to ask you all about what “quality” means to you.

I come from a background in research data management and have worked with colleagues at Metadata Game Changers to explore metadata quality and consistency across the global research infrastructure. The two principles there, Ted Habermann and Erin Robinson, have since done some interesting work examining metadata quality from the perspective of the FAIR Principles. One of the ideas I appreciate from their work is the observation that metadata quality isn’t necessarily about having more metadata, but more specifically it’s about having the metadata needed to support particular use cases.

For some organizations, quality may mean richer descriptions that improve discovery. For others, it may mean consistent controlled vocabularies, persistent identifiers, provenance information, accessibility, interoperability, or something else entirely.

So, I am curious, what does “metadata quality” mean to you and how do you know when you see it?

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The EU has a description of their Metadata Quality Assessment Methodology. Maybe that is useful for you – if you don’t already know about it.

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Thanks, @jze! I was loosely aware of the EU’s Metadata Quality Assessment methodology, but hadn’t had the opportunity to explore it in much detail before (so I doubly appreciate you sharing it).

One thing I particularly appreciate about the EU methodology is that it takes such care to define the terms that comprise the methodology before moving on to identify dimensions and indicators.

How different organizations define the terms by which they assess metadata quality was actually part of what I was hoping to explore with my earlier prompt. Different organizations, communities, and jurisdictions often have different priorities, use cases, and expectations, which means they may also define metadata quality somewhat differently. I’m curious to hear whether others are working from similarly explicit methodologies, or whether metadata quality is understood more informally within their own organizations.