View points on data points: A shared vocabulary for cross-domain conversations on data and metadata

Abstract

Sharing data across scientific domains is often impeded by differences in the language used to describe data and metadata.  We argue that disagreements over the boundary between data and metadata are a common source of confusion.  Information appearing as data in one domain may be considered metadata in another domain, a process that we call “semantic transposition.”  To promote greater understanding, we develop new terminology for describing how data and metadata are structured, and we show how it can be applied to a variety of widely used data formats.  Our approach builds upon previous work, such as the Observations and Measurements (ISO 19156) data model. We rely on tools from the Data Documentation Initiative’s Cross Domain Integration (DDI-CDI) to illustrate how the same data can be represented in different ways, and how information considered data in one format can become metadata in another format.