Metadata analyser: Measuring metadata quality

Abstract

Scientific research is increasingly dependent on publicly available information and data sharing. So far, the best practices to ensure that data is accessible and shareable has been to deposit it in public repositories. However, these repositories often fail to implement mechanisms that measure data quality, which could lead to improving the discoverability of existing data, and contribute to its future integration. In light of this, we present Metadata Analyser, a tool that measures metadata quality. It assesses the quality of metadata by considering the proportion of terms actually linked to ontology concepts, as well as the specificity of the terms used in the metadata. Metadata Analyser applied to Metabolights, a real-world repository of metabolomics data, and results show that the tool successfully implements the proposed measures, that there is indeed a lack of effort in the annotation task, and that our tool can be used to improve this situation. Metadata Analyser’s fron-tend is available at http://masterweb-metadataanalyser.rhcloud.com.