{"id":16251,"date":"2016-04-16T08:36:49","date_gmt":"2016-04-16T07:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ch.imperial.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=16251"},"modified":"2016-06-26T08:27:20","modified_gmt":"2016-06-26T07:27:20","slug":"metametadata-data-about-data-about-chemical-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=16251","title":{"rendered":"Metametadata: data about data about (chemical) data."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"kcite-section\" kcite-section-id=\"16251\">\n<p>\n\tScientists are familiar with the term <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">data,<\/span> at least in a scientific or chemical context, but appreciating <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">metadata<\/span> (meaning &quot;after&quot;, or &quot;beyond&quot;) is slightly more subtle, in the sense of using it to mean data about data. The challenge lies in clarifying where the boundary between data and its metadata lies and in specifying and controlling the vocabulary used for these metadata descriptions. Items in a chemical metadata dictionary might include <em>e.g.<\/em> subject classifications such as <em>Organic Molecular Chemistry <\/em>or identifiers such as <em>InChIkey<\/em>. But what could <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">metametadata <\/span>be? Here I briefly show some examples by way of illustration.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tLet me start by defining a data repository as a store of both data <strong>and <\/strong>the metadata describing it. The metadata is to be exposed in a standard manner which allows it to be aggregated by other agencies. Nowdays, it is becoming common to identify such a data object together with its metadata using a persistent identifier, or DOI. But to decide if any particular repository and the data objects contained therein is generally useful to you, you need information about the metadata itself. Technically, this is defined using a <strong>schema<\/strong><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-0\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-0\">[1]<\/a><\/span> describing the metadata (which might <em>e.g.<\/em> identify any dictionaries used); hence <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">metametadata<\/span>. Now you need to store the metametadata and so I introduce the concept of a registry which does this. This metametadata object is itself assigned a DOI<sup>&Dagger;<\/sup> and here I list these DOIs for a personal selection of some chemically oriented examples, in this case deriving from the largest registry of research data repositories <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>re3data.org. <\/strong><\/span>You can search for your own entry at their site: <a href=\"http:\/\/service.re3data.org\/search\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/service.re3data.org\/search<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<table border=\"1\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th>\n\t\t\t\tData repository\n\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t\tThe repository metametadata DOI<sup>&clubs;<\/sup>\n\t\t\t<\/th>\n<th>\n\t\t\t\tBadge\n\t\t\t<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\tFigshare\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R3PK5R\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R3PK5R<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-1\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-1\">[2]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010066.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\tZenodo\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R3QP53\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R3QP53<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-2\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-2\">[3]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010468.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\tCambridge structure database\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R36011\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R36011<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-3\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-3\">[4]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010197.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\tCrystallographic open database\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R37S31\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R37S31<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-4\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-4\">[5]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010213.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tOxford University Research Archive\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R3Q056\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R3Q056<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-5\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-5\">[6]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100011230.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tOpen Notebook Science\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R3859D\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R3859D<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-6\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-6\">[7]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010113.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tUsefulchem\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R3Z89N\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R3Z89N<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-7\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-7\">[8]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010680.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tChemotion\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R34P5T\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R34P5T<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-8\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-8\">[9]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010748.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tChemspider\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R38P4P\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R38P4P<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-9\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-9\">[10]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010205.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tChemical Database Service\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R36P42\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R36P42<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-10\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-10\">[11]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100000021.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tImperial College HPC data repository.\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R3K64N\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R3K64N<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-11\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-11\">[12]<\/a><\/span>,<span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-12\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-12\">[13]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100011965.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tImperial College SPECTRa repository.<span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-13\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-13\">[14]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/R30316\" target=\"_blank\">10.17616\/R30316<\/a><span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-14\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-14\">[15]<\/a><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<td>\n\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/100010719.svg\" width=\"200\" \/>\n\t\t\t<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>\n\tNot all of the repositories listed in the table above assign formal DOIs to their data collections, meaning that the metadata for their entries cannot be aggregated in a searchable manner using <em>e.g.<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/search.datacite.org\/ui\" target=\"_blank\">search.datacite.org\/ui<\/a> (or <a href=\"http:\/\/search.datacite.org\/api\">search.datacite.org\/api<\/a> for the machine version). Currently, the metametadata does not fully carry this information, an aspect which I gather will be rectified in a future revision of the re3data schema.<span id=\"cite_ITEM-16251-0\" name=\"citation\"><a href=\"#ITEM-16251-0\">[1]<\/a><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tImportantly, both metadata and (repository) metametadata can be searched using <a href=\"http:\/\/service.re3data.org\/api\/doc\" target=\"_blank\">API<\/a>s (application programmer interface), ensuring that the entire flow of meta information can be subject to automated software analysis rather than just visual inspections by a human.This should allow a&nbsp;rich and <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>open<\/strong><\/span> infrastructure for handling research objects or data to be built up using hierarchical metadata. The examples above indeed show that the chemical space is already the largest component of the Natural Sciences space.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/269.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"NH3-8\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-15936\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/269.jpg\" width=\"450\" \/><\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAlthough the&nbsp;edifice is&nbsp;still largely in its infancy,&nbsp;already I think we can start to see an alternative open&nbsp;approach emerging to &quot;Googling&quot; for data, or the even older&nbsp;traditional bespoke (<em>i.e.<\/em> non-open) services offered by commercial human-based&nbsp;abstractors of chemical metadata.\n<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>\n\t<sup>&Dagger;<\/sup>This DOI is information about the metametadata, and hence it is metametametadata, or <strong>m3data<\/strong>.&nbsp;Sorry! <sup>&clubs;<\/sup>The citations at the foot of this post are generated entirely automatically (by a WordPress plugin called Kcite) from the m3data associated with each entry, <em>i.e.<\/em> the DOI listed. Were the persistent identifier for the entry ever to be changed, this would propagate automatically to the citation, unlike the static entries in the table.\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"citizen-ex__pane\" style=\"\">\n\t&nbsp;\n<\/div>\n<h2>References<\/h2>\n    <ol class=\"kcite-bibliography csl-bib-body\"><li id=\"ITEM-16251-0\">J. R\u00fccknagel, P. Vierkant, R. Ulrich, G. Kloska, E. Schnepf, D. Fichtm\u00fcller, E. Reuter, A. Semrau, M. Kindling, H. Pampel, M. Witt, F. Fritze, S. Van De Sandt, J. Klump, H. Goebelbecker, M. Skarupianski, R. Bertelmann, P. Schirmbacher, F. Scholze, C. Kramer, C. Fuchs, S. Spier, and A. Kirchhoff, \"Metadata Schema for the Description of Research Data Repositories\", 2015. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2312\/re3.008\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.2312\/re3.008<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-1\">Re3data.Org., \"figshare\", 2012. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3pk5r\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3pk5r<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-2\">Re3data.Org., \"Zenodo\", 2013. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3qp53\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3qp53<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-3\">Re3data.Org., \"The Cambridge Structural Database\", 2013. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r36011\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r36011<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-4\">Re3data.Org., \"Crystallography Open Database\", 2013. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r37s31\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r37s31<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-5\">Re3data.Org., \"Oxford University Research Archive\", 2014. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3q056\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3q056<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-6\">Re3data.Org., \"ONSchallenge\", 2013. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3859d\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3859d<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-7\">Re3data.Org., \"UsefulChem\", 2014. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3z89n\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3z89n<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-8\">Re3data.Org., \"chemotion\", 2013. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r34p5t\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r34p5t<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-9\">Re3data.Org., \"ChemSpider\", 2013. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r38p4p\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r38p4p<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-10\">Re3data.Org., \"Chemical Database Service\", 2012. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r36p42\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r36p42<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-11\">Re3data.Org., \"Imperial College Research Computing Service Data Repository\", 2016. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3k64n\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r3k64n<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-12\">H. Rzepa, \"Imperial College High Performance Computing Service Data Repository Metadata Schema\", 2016. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.14469\/hpc\/382\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.14469\/hpc\/382<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-13\">J. Downing, P. Murray-Rust, A.P. Tonge, P. Morgan, H.S. Rzepa, F. Cotterill, N. Day, and M.J. Harvey, \"SPECTRa: The Deposition and Validation of Primary Chemistry Research Data in Digital Repositories\", <i>Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling<\/i>, vol. 48, pp. 1571-1581, 2008. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1021\/ci7004737\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1021\/ci7004737<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<li id=\"ITEM-16251-14\">Re3data.Org., \"SPECTRa Project\", 2013. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r30316\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.17616\/r30316<\/a>\n\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n<\/div> <!-- kcite-section 16251 -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists are familiar with the term data, at least in a scientific or chemical context, but appreciating metadata (meaning &quot;after&quot;, or &quot;beyond&quot;) is slightly more subtle, in the sense of using it to mean data about data. The challenge lies in clarifying where the boundary between data and its metadata lies and in specifying and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":5,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[1420,1828,1821,1822,1824,1829,1827,1823,1742,1820,1474,1690,1475,589,1819,1826,1825,1405],"ppma_author":[2661],"class_list":["post-16251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemical-it","tag-academic-publishing","tag-automated-software-analysis","tag-base","tag-chemical-context","tag-chemical-database-service","tag-chemical-metadata","tag-chemical-metadata-dictionary","tag-chemical-space","tag-city-cambridge","tag-data-dictionary","tag-data-management","tag-identifiers","tag-knowledge-representation","tag-programmer","tag-registry-of-research-data-repositories","tag-search-datacite-orgapi","tag-spectra","tag-technologyinternet"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Metametadata: data about data about (chemical) data. - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ch.ic.ac.uk\/rzepa\/blog\/?p=16251\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Metametadata: data about data about (chemical) data. - Henry Rzepa&#039;s Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scientists are familiar with the term data, at least in a scientific or chemical context, but appreciating metadata (meaning &quot;after&quot;, or &quot;beyond&quot;) is slightly more subtle, in the sense of using it to mean data about data. 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