Getting in Touch with Metadata: A DDI Subset for FAIR Metadata Production by Researchers

In the scope of a project dealing with psychological adjustment of families at risk, it is foreseen the collection of different types of data, resulting from questionnaires, interviews and other observations. To minimize data loss and promote data sharing among project members there was the need to specify, as an integral part of a Data Management Plan, how data will be documented. Therefore, DDI was identified as the most suitable vocabulary to simplify the creation of FAIR metadata by the researchers. We describe the activities that led to the selection of the DDI elements that best fit the project metadata requirements and are likelier to be adopted by researchers inexperienced with metadata. Our first practical task was the publication of research data from a similar project using the ICPSR data deposit template to filter essential elements. A second activity consisted in a data description focus group with project members to evaluate the proposed metadata elements. The use of DDI elements has the potential to ensure interoperability with data publication initiatives in the social sciences, while the selection of a minimal set of DDI elements makes data description a realistic activity from the researchers’ perspective