Applying Interoperable Metadata Standards (AIMS) - A Platform for Creating and Sharing Metadata Standards and their Integration into Scientific Workflows in Mechanical Engineering and Related Disciplines

研究数据的管理需要通过元数据对其内容和创建进行精确的记录。为了实现公平原则所要求的最高程度的可解释性和(可重用性)，元数据必须既可供机器阅读，也可供人类阅读。定义格式以及所需内容和允许内容的标准是实现这一目标的必要前提。然而，目前合适的元数据标准仅适用于非常有限的科学学科和研究数据类型，这构成了有效管理研究数据的主要障碍。由于建立元数据标准是一个复杂和协作的过程，因此应该有一个基础设施来支持元数据标准的高效创建、共享和重用。为此，我们打算创建一个工具，方便元数据标准的生成和改编，并将其与一个收集所创建标准并编制索引的平台联系起来，使科学界能够获取这些标准。元数据标准将由受控词汇表汇编而成，并符合当前最先进的互操作性元数据的应用概况。此外，有必要确保符合定义的标准的元数据的创建不会扰乱研究。因此，该项目的另一个重要部分将是建立工作流程，其中以最少的额外工作生成元数据，并利用有益的协同效应，如用于电子实验室笔记或用作数据存档和备份策略的索引。为了保持项目范围的可管理性，并利用RWTH Aachen University和TU Darmstadt在该学科领域的专业知识，重点将放在机械工程上，作为一门学科的主要候选者，该学科可以从适当的元数据标准和策略中受益，从而有效地利用元数据记录研究数据。

Management of research data requires precise documentation of their content and creation via metadata. In order to enable the highest possible degree of interpretability and (re-)usability as demanded by the FAIR principles, metadata must be readable by machines as well as by humans. Standards defining the format as well as the required and permitted content are a necessary prerequisite for this. At present, however, suitable metadata standards are only available for a very limited number of scientific disciplines and types of research data, which constitutes a major obstacle to efficient research data management.Since establishing metadata standards is a complex and collaborative process, it should be supported by an infrastructure enabling the efficient creation, sharing and reuse of metadata standards. To this end, we intend to create a tool for the easy generation and adaptation of metadata standards linked to a platform collecting and indexing the created standards to make them accessible to the scientific community. The metadata standards will be assembled from controlled vocabularies and comply with application profiles as current state-of-the-art for interoperable metadata.In addition, it is necessary to ensure that the creation of metadata compliant to the defined standards does not disrupt research. Another essential part of the project will therefore be to establish workflows in which the metadata are generated with minimum extra effort and beneficial synergy effects like use in electronic lab notes or as index for data archives and backup strategies are exploited.In order to keep the scope of the project manageable and to capitalize on RWTH Aachen University’s and TU Darmstadt’s expertise in that subject area, the focus will be on mechanical engineering as a prime candidate for a discipline that could greatly benefit from suitable metadata standards and strategies for efficient documentation of research data with metadata.