Towards Institutional Data Tracking: A Case Study from the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)

This paper presents a case study on institutional research data tracking accomplished by the Research Data Service at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT). It first discusses the strategic relevance of systematic monitoring and introduces a working definition of institutional research data. By demonstrating how metadata from published datasets can be integrated into the ZMT DataPortal, the study highlights how visibility, discoverability, and institutional oversight of research outputs can be strengthened. Practical approaches for harvesting metadata from major repositories are outlined, with a focus on scalable and sustainable solutions. In this context, the paper examines the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), web-based search interfaces, Python libraries, and open-source tools such as Zotero.

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This work was supported by the German Research Foundation DFG under the grant agreement number 442032008 (NFDI4Biodiversity). The project is part of NFDI, the National Research Data Infrastructure Programme in Germany.

The ZMT use case #27 in the NFDI4Biodiversity focuses on institutional research data management. The aim is to identify challenges in dealing with research data, develop corresponding concepts and guidelines and make these available to the community.