KonsortSWD Measure 5.2: Enhancing data findability Milestones 4 and 5 report

This report describes the data findability improvement strategy recommendations for Research Data Centres (RDCs) across the KonsortSWD community. It compares results between the first (2021) and the second (2022) survey waves applied to the 44 participants within the 34 KonsortSWD RDCs. We assessed these results towards understanding the data findability practices adopted in these communities. The quantitative technique for surveying the data findability practices of the KonsortSWD repositories is an essential part of our methodology. It tracks any eventual changes between these two surveys, detailing the tools and services adopted or improved by RDCs, followed by the discussion and RDCs testimonials on the consultations we have provided. Moreover, the technique highlights the data findability practices and monitoring tools, describing the SEO monitoring with the Sistrix application and providing a better understanding of the community's data findability trends. Data findability tools and resources are crucial to leveraging valuable datasets that are largely available but still under-exploited. As a result, it provides recommendations allowing change monitoring regarding the repository enhancements and tracking implemented instruments used to measure the impact of the data visibility. To enable quick data discoverability and easy accessibility, RDCs shall urgently improve their data findability practices. From simple techniques, such as sitemaps and SEO improvements, to higher-level discovery services and findability measures, RDCs shall also provide rich and structured metadata to enable search engines to harvest and rank their search results better. We find that doing so puts a strain on the technical resources available to many of the RDCs, and we therefore outline more centralised measures to be undertaken in the next project phase.