Exposing Standardization and Consistency Issues in Repository Metadata Requirements for Data Deposition

We examine common and unique metadata requirements and their levels of description, determined by the data deposit forms of 20 repositories in three disciplines—archaeology, quantitative social science, and zoology. The results reveal that requirements relating to Creator, Description, Contributor, Date, Relation, and Location are common, whereas those regarding Publisher and Language are rarely listed across the disciplines. Data-level descriptions are more common than study- and file-level descriptions. The results suggest that repositories should require detailed study-level descriptions and information about data usage licenses and access rights. Moreover, repositories should determine metadata requirements in a standardized and consistent manner.