The Matter of Meta in Research Data Management

The provision and maintenance of metadata – understood as data about (research) data – has a key role in contextualizing, understanding, and preserving research data within Research Data Management (RDM). Acknowledging the importance of metadata in the social sciences, the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives started the Metadata Office project (MDO) in 2019. This presentation covers the various activities and impact of the MDO, including metadata models, controlled vocabularies and thesauri, and introduces plans on how the project may develop. The MDO collaborates with the DDI Alliance on multilingual translations of DDI vocabularies for CESSDA Service Providers and provides communication, training and advice on metadata and DDI use across CESSDA.