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Persistent identifiers for research objects, researchers, organizations, and funders are the key to creating unambiguous and persistent connections across the global research infrastructure (GRI). Many repositories are implementing mechanisms to collect and integrate these identifiers into their submission and record curation processes. This bodes well for a well-connected future, but metadata for existing resources submitted in the past are missing these identifiers, thus missing the connections required for inclusion in the connected infrastructure. Re-curation of these metadata is required to make these connections. This paper introduces the global research infrastructure and demonstrates how repositories, and their user communities, can contribute to and benefit from connections to the global research infrastructure.

The Dryad Data Repository has existed since 2008 and has successfully re-curated the repository metadata several times, adding identifiers for research organizations, funders, and researchers. Understanding and quantifying these successes depends on measuring repository and identifier connectivity. Metrics are described and applied to the entire repository here.

Identifiers (Digital Object Identifiers, DOIs) for papers connected to datasets in Dryad have long been a critical part of the Dryad metadata creation and curation processes. Since 2019, the portion of datasets with connected papers has decreased from 100% to less than 40%. This decrease has significant ramifications for the re-curation efforts described above as connected papers have been an important source of metadata. In addition, missing connections to papers make understanding and re-using datasets more difficult.

Connections between datasets and papers can be difficult to make because of time lags between submission and publication, lack of clear mechanisms for citing datasets and other research objects from papers, changing focus of researchers, and other obstacles. The Dryad community of members, i.e. users, research institutions, publishers, and funders have vested interests in identifying these connections and critical roles in the curation and re-curation efforts. Their engagement will be critical in building on the successes Dryad has already achieved and ensuring sustainable connectivity in the future.

 

Over the last decade, significant changes have affected the work that data repositories of all kinds do. First, the emergence of globally unique and persistent identifiers (PIDs) has created new opportunities for repositories to engage with the global research community by connecting existing repository resources to the global research infrastructure. Second, repository use cases have evolved from data discovery to data discovery and reuse, significantly increasing metadata requirements.To respond to these evolving requirements, we need retrospective and on-going curation, i.e. re-curation, processes that 1) find identifiers and add them to existing metadata to connect datasets to a wider range of communities, and 2) add elements that support reuse to globally connected metadata.The goal of this work is to introduce the concept of re-curation with representative examples that are generally applicable to many repositories: 1) increasing completeness of affiliations and identifiers for organizations and funders in the Dryad Repository and 2) measuring and increasing FAIRness of DataCite metadata beyond required fields for institutional repositories.These re-curation efforts are a critical part of reshaping existing metadata and repository processes so they can take advantage of new connections, engage with global research communities, and facilitate data reuse.

 

Inconsistent and incomplete applications of metadata standards and unsatisfactory approaches to connecting repository holdings across the global research infrastructure inhibit data discovery and reusability. The Realities of Academic Data Sharing (RADS) Initiative has found that institutions and researchers create and have access to the most complete metadata, but that valuable metadata found in these local institutional repositories (IRs) are not making their way into global data infrastructure such as DataCite or Crossref. This panel examines the local to global spectrum of metadata completeness, including the challenges of obtaining quality metadata at a local level, specifically at Cornell University, and the loss of metadata during the transfer processes from IRs into global data infrastructure. The metadata completeness increases over time, as users reuse data and contribute to the metadata. As metadata improves and grows, users find and develop connections within data not previously visible to them. By feeding local IR metadata into the global data infrastructure, the global infrastructure starts giving back in the form of these connections. We believe that this information will be helpful in coordinating metadata better and more effectively across data repositories and creating more robust interoperability and reusability between and among IRs.