DataCite Best Practice Guide

This document is a guideline for the use of the official DataCite Metadata Schema documentation [external link], version 4.5 [external link]. A support documentation for more convenience and better navigation can be found here as a HTML version DataCite Metadata Schema Documentation [external link, different versions available]. It is meant for researchers, IT and library support staff. Further information on the schema can be found on the DataCite support site [external link].

The document was created with participation from the following institutions/projects:

• IT-Gruppe Geisteswissenschaften (LMU)
• Leibniz Supercomputing Centre
• Max Weber Stiftung - Deutsche Geisteswissenschaftliche Institute im Ausland
• Universitätsbibliothek der FAU
• Universitätsbibliothek der LMU München
• VerbaAlpina

This guide is designed to be reused by other institutions as well.

To create a DataCite XML file for the project you want to describe, we recommend to you to use the DataCite Metadata Generator [external link]. This tool is kept in sync with this guideline, safe for transmission times inbetween versions. If you want to create metadata for research data on a scale that is too large for manual procedures, please contact one of the institutions named above.