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This document includes guidelines for the usage and best practices for the CESSDA Metadata Model version 3.0. The guidelines address all relevant aspects of the elements in the CESSDA Metadata Model and serve to provide recommendations and guidance for usage. This is version 3.0 of the User Guide and is the result of further development of the User Guides created in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Social media data are increasingly used in the social sciences. Archiving social media data is associated with a number of specific practical, legal, and ethical challenges that researchers and archivists need to address. In addition, the documentation of social media data also has its own requirements. This guide discusses these different challenges and provides suggestions for addressing them. Based on general considerations as well as examples of social media data that have been archived by CESSDA service providers (and how the identified challenges have been dealt with in those cases), the guide presents suggestions for metadata elements that need to be developed or extended for the proper documentation of social media data. Taking into account the various challenges in archiving social media data and how they may be addressed, the guide also presents practical recommendations for researchers working with social media data and the development of social media data collection tools with regard to the requirements for archiving them.

This is the current public version of the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM). Please send your requests to the CESSDA Metadata Office via metadata-office@cessda.eu. Guidelines for the usage of and best practice for the CMM can be found in the respective User Guide.

This is the current public version of the User Guide for the CESSDA Metadata Model version 2.0. The guidelines address all relevant aspects of the elements in the CESSDA Metadata Model, and serve to provide recommendations and guidance for usage. Please send your requests to the CESSDA Metadata Office via metadata-office@cessda.eu.&nbsp

This report summarizes the relevant information on the CESSDA New Data Types webinar as an additional written record to the video recording and the published slides. The webinar “Archiving Social Media Data – Challenges and Proposed Solutions” was conducted on the 4th of June 2020. This webinar is part of the CESSDA New Data Types Workplan for 2020. The first section of the report contains overview information on the webinar. The second part provides details on the content that was presented during the webinar. The third part captures questions from attendees as well as the responses to those questions. Section four presents a conclusion in which the main outcomes of the webinar and its implications are discussed, and section five comprises suggestions for further reading.

The content of this report is intended for CESSDA SPs, aspiring CESSDA members, CESSDA MO, and anyone interested in the topics in general and in the metadata work of CESSDA in particular. The report is supposed to provide information for current CESSDA SPs and aspiring CESSDA SPs on the initiatives relevant for CESSDA’s metadata work, and guidance for SPs for their general considerations on the quality and possible upgrades of their metadata. Furthermore, the report will provide information for the public and display information on what is essential for CESSDA concerning the metadata work and how CESSDA interacts with and reflects relevant metadata initiatives. Additionally, this report is intended to provide recommendations for strategic decisions on CESSDA’s metadata developments and a knowledge base that allows easy and grounded decision-making.

Several years ago, CESSDA had a dream. We would synthesize metadata from European partners and harmonize it into beautiful repositories, whether data catalogues or question banks, by making DDI less terrifying for normal human beings. Thus, the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM) was born. And then we woke up. This presentation introduces the CESSDA Metadata Office, the CMM, and how we developed the original vision to support the CDC (CESSDA Data Catalogue) and EQB (European Question Bank). We describe the challenges along the way, from capturing first requirements in spreadsheets to refining the model into an XML schema, then a UML model, and finally, the first real-world implementation of DDI Profiles, which will change the way we measure metadata quality. This has been not only a technical journey but a pan-European collaboration between end-users and metadata experts who communicate in English but are often still speaking different languages. We also offer suggestions (learnt the hard way) about how DDI Profile mechanisms could be improved in future versions. Lastly, we outline future developments in 2021 and how the CESSDA Metadata Validator can help repositories to quality assure their published metadata. Recorded version of the whole session: https://youtu.be/YtB14nQn79Q

While much effort has gone into developing tools and methods for collecting and analyzing social media data, there still is considerable uncertainty regarding the archiving of these data. This webinar brought together experts from various institutions that have experience in working with social media data to discuss practical, ethical, and legal challenges. In the opening presentations, Libby Hemphill (ICPSR) addressed ICPSR's efforts to enhance metadata for social media objects, integrating social media data into the restricted data ecosystem at ICPSR, and the changes to technical infrastructure that social media data require. Janez Štebe (Slovenian Social Sciences Data Archives) discussed the application of FAIR indicators to social media archiving and provide an overview of existing cases of social media archiving from the SERISS project. Sara D. Thomson (University of Edinburgh) presented on common challenges and potential shared solutions across different archive sectors to ethically preserving and sharing social media. Libby Bishop (GESIS) presented metadata challenges regarding social media data, and present draft recommendations of metadata elements and documentation developed from examples of ingesting such data at GESIS. Sebastian Karcher (Qualitative Data Repository) discussed the distinct opportunities and challenges of archiving small-n social media data commonly used in qualitative social science research with a special focus on tools for archivists and researchers. Oliver Watteler (GESIS) addressed the challenges presented by cases in which researchers have circumvented legal restrictions, like license agreements or usage contracts, in order to get to the data they need. These presentations were followed by a roundtable discussion with the attendees. Note: This video is also available for viewing on Youtube.

This report summarizes the relevant information on the CESSDA Metadata Office webinar as an additional written record to the video recording. The “Webinar of the CESSDA Metadata Office – status quo, future developments & special focus on CMM” was conducted on the 6th of May 2020. The first section of the report contains overview information on the webinar. The second part provides details on the content that was presented during the webinar. The third part captures questions and comments of attendees, as well as the responses to those questions. Section number four comprises further reading proposals. This is a Deliverable D2b: Report on the webinar of the CESSDA 2020 Work Plan Task "CESSDA Metadata Office (MDO) Task 1".

This report summarizes the relevant information on the CESSDA Metadata Office webinar as an additional written record to the video recording. The “Webinar of the CESSDA Metadata Office – status quo, future developments & special focus on CMM” was conducted on the 6th of May 2020. The first section of the report contains overview information on the webinar. The second part provides details on the content that was presented during the webinar. The third part captures questions and comments of attendees, as well as the responses to those questions. Section number four comprises further reading proposals. This is a Deliverable D2b: Report on the webinar of the CESSDA 2020 Work Plan Task "CESSDA Metadata Office (MDO) Task 1".

Accompanying the growing importance of research data management, the provision and maintenance of metadata have obtained a key role in contextualizing, understanding, and preserving research data. Acknowledging the importance of metadata in the social sciences, the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) ERIC started the Metadata Office project in 2019. This webinar introduces the CESSDA Metadata Office (MDO) and its various activities. A special focus of the webinar was on the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM). The Webinar was divided into two parts. The first part contained an overview of the CESSDA Metadata Office (MDO) Project, the current work, and services of the CESSDA MDO. The second part could be of special interest to anyone working with or being interested in the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3543756). It entailed general information about the CESSDA Metadata Model and the changes that have been made between the first published version of CMM (v0.1) and the current published version of CMM (v1.0). Information on how the MDO is trying to facilitate the work with CMM in the future (e.g. by producing DDI profiles) was also presented. Note: This video is also available for viewing on Youtube.

Accompanying the growing importance of research data management, the provision and maintenance of metadata have obtained a key role in contextualizing, understanding, and preserving research data. Acknowledging the importance of metadata in the social sciences, the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives (CESSDA) ERIC started the Metadata Office project in 2019. This webinar introduces the CESSDA Metadata Office (MDO) and its various activities. A special focus of the webinar was on the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM). The Webinar was divided into two parts. The first part contained an overview of the CESSDA Metadata Office (MDO) Project, the current work, and services of the CESSDA MDO. The second part could be of special interest to anyone working with or being interested in the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM; https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3543756). It entailed general information about the CESSDA Metadata Model and the changes that have been made between the first published version of CMM (v0.1) and the current published version of CMM (v1.0). Information on how the MDO is trying to facilitate the work with CMM in the future (e.g. by producing DDI profiles) was also presented. Note: This video is also available for viewing on Youtube.

This presentation focuses on the CESSDA Metadata Office Project and on the CESSDA metadata model.

This presentation focuses on the CESSDA Metadata Office Project and on the CESSDA metadata model.&nbsp

The provision and maintenance of metadata – understood as data about (research) data – has a key role in contextualizing, understanding, and preserving research data within Research Data Management (RDM). Acknowledging the importance of metadata in the social sciences, the Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives started the Metadata Office project (MDO) in 2019. This presentation covers the various activities and impact of the MDO, including metadata models, controlled vocabularies and thesauri, and introduces plans on how the project may develop. The MDO collaborates with the DDI Alliance on multilingual translations of DDI vocabularies for CESSDA Service Providers and provides communication, training and advice on metadata and DDI use across CESSDA.

This is the first public version of the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM). Please note that it is considered as a final draft, meaning that comments and requests for revision from the CESSDA community are welcome. Please send your requests to the CESSDA Metadata Office via metadata-office@cessda.eu. Guidelines for the usage of and best practice for the CMM can be found in the respective User Guide (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3236193).&nbsp

This document includes guidelines for the usage of and best practice for the CESSDA Metadata Model (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3236171). The guidelines address all relevant aspects of the elements in the CESSDA Metadata Model, and serve to provide recommendations and guidance for usage. Please note that this document is the first public version of the User Guide for the CESSDA Metadata Model and thus considered as a final draft, meaning that comments and requests for revision by the CESSDA community are welcome. Please send your requests to the CESSDA Metadata Office via metadata-office@cessda.eu.

This is the first public version of the CESSDA Metadata Model (CMM). Please note that it is considered as a final draft, meaning that comments and requests for revision from the CESSDA community are welcome. Please send your requests to the CESSDA Metadata Office via metadata-office@cessda.eu.

Over the years, the social sciences have become increasingly data intensive. Hence, data repositories must facilitate the identification and location of data. Persistent identification is essential for sustainable and reliable resource discovery and reuse. The use of a persistent identifier (PID) supports data access, referencing data and data citation. However using PIDs pose complex technical and organizational challenges to data providers. This presentation discusses our paper on the use of PIDs within CESSDA ERIC (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives European Infrastructure Research Consortium). CESSDA ERIC provides its communities with well documented, verifiable and understandable research data. This can be majorly supported by the assignment of PIDs, that are unique on a global scale. In order to find a common approach to the use of PIDs among CESSDA members, CESSDA started the PID project in 2015. For this project, GESIS conducted quantitative and qualitative surveys among CESSDA members, to assess their current status and their needs concerning PID usage. The results of these surveys lay the groundwork for the CESSDA ERIC Persistent Identifier Policy. Those surveys, their results as well as the resulting PID Policy shall be presented here.

The CESSDA (Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives) Metadata Management project produced in May 2017 the CESSDA Metadata Standards Portfolio Version 1 that contains the CESSDA Metadata Core Model and the multilingual CESSDA Controlled Vocabularies. The Portfolio is based on DDI Lifecycle 3.2 and DDI CVs. We will provide a rough overview of the Core Metadata Model and the CVs, and demonstrate how we used the DDI capabilities to represent our model, and how the model can support building CESSDA services like the Product and Service Catalogue and the Euro Question Bank. The CESSDA metadata work continues in CMM Phase 2 project that will enhance and expand the Portfolio, and make it possible to align optimally with other CESSDA initiatives. The second part of the presentation will give a preview of the outputs of CMM phase 2. We will also discuss the challenges of developing the CMM model and the lessons learned so far.

"This document contains guidelines for the implementation of the CESSDA Persistent Identifier Policy Principles. These guidelines address all CESSDA Service Providers (SP). This information is aimed at supporting CESSDA SP to implement the use of global Persistent Identifiers (PID) and to assess the consequences for their organisation." (Introduction, p. 3)

"The CESSDA ERIC Persistent Identifier Policy is intended to support the aims of locating, discovering, referencing, identifying and citing CESSDA SP data holdings. It serves as a basis for a common approach to the use of Persistent Identifier services across the CESSDA SP. The policy contains requirements regarding the use of Persistent Identifiers to which the CESSDA SP must adhere to. The principles of the PID Policy are aligned with the CESSDA ERIC Statutes and the CESSDA ERIC Data Access Policy." (Introduction, page 2)

At EDDI15 the CESSDA Metadata Management (CMM) group presented the project which had just been started. One year later, the creation of the Metadata Portfolio Version1 is under way and considerations for the CMM Phase 2, and therefore the “next, evolved and adapted generation” of the Metadata Portfolio, are being made. This presentation will focus on the current status of the CMM Core Metadata Model Version 1. The authors will present the relevant interim results and highlight the broad use of DDI-Lifecycle within the model. The model takes into account the needs of resource discovery, the CESSDA Euro Question Bank, preservation, and multi-lingual items. The extension and adaptation of the Core Metadata Model for Phase 2 of the project is intended to meet further user needs (identified in Phase 1) and the requirement to coordinate the model with the DDI Moving Forward data model. Additionally, we intend to portray the ideas, prospects and challenges for this next, extended and amended version of the Core Metadata Model.

The workshop was intended to inform the CESSDA Service Providers and representatives from other European Data Archives on the overall insights received from the interviews and the desk research made within the CESSDA PID (Personal Identifiers) Task over the past months. It presented the status quo of PID usage within CESSDA as well as User stories of the different CESSDA Service Providers.

The CESSDA Data Access Policy has been developed to provide a set of principles for CESSDA Service Providers (SPs) covering common standards for the provision of data and metadata access. The policy also aims to demonstrate CESSDA’s commitment to open science while protecting both privacy and intellectual property rights. The policy was first published in 2016 and was updated in 2022 to cover new developments in legislation and standards covering data access; to reflect current needs and requirements for data access in the social science community; and as membership of CESSDA grows, to ensure its relevance across a wider range of SP organisations.