Metadata

Metadata Catalogue TDO Metadata Standard Minimum Viable Metadata (MVM) Metadata Converter

Metadata Catalogue (mock)

Filters: Publisher · Country · Theme · Data Type · Format · Keywords

Example results:

  • Consumer Price Index (CPI) — Publisher: NSO Country A — Format: CSV/JSON
  • GDP per capita (current prices) — Publisher: NSO Country B — Format: CSV
  • Unemployment rate (monthly) — Publisher: Central Bank C — Format: API/JSON

Metadata Standards & Tools

TDO Metadata Standard: TDO aligns with international profiles such as DCAT/DCAT‑AP to ensure discoverability, comparability and reuse of datasets across national and international portals.

MVM (Minimum Viable Metadata): The smallest set of fields to make datasets findable, interoperable and AI‑ready across catalogues.

Metadata Converter: Utilities to map common formats to the TDO profile (e.g., DCAT‑AP export for harvesting).

Minimum Viable Metadata (MVM)

Why MVM matters

A concise, standard‑based MVM ensures datasets are consistently described and discoverable across portals, supports harvesting and cross‑border search, and provides the semantic signals machines and AI systems need for reliable retrieval and reuse.

TDO‑MVM: Proposed fields

title — human‑readable dataset title.
description — concise summary describing what the dataset contains and how it can be used.
publisher — organisation responsible for publishing; supports trust and provenance.
identifier — stable, unique ID or permalink for unambiguous referencing.
theme — controlled topic/category to enable faceted discovery.
keywords — 5–10 user‑oriented tags to boost search recall.
spatial — geographic scope (e.g., country/region) for cross‑portal filtering.
temporal — time coverage (e.g., 2015–2024; “current”).
issued / modified — publication date and last update for freshness and trust.
distribution.accessURL / downloadURL — landing page/API endpoint or direct file link.
distribution.mediaType (or format) — machine‑readable type (e.g., text/csv, application/json).
license — usage rights to inform reuse.
contactPoint — contact for questions or onboarding.
conformsTo — reference to applicable standard/profile (e.g., DCAT‑AP, SDMX).

Rationale: This set maps to DCAT/DCAT‑AP mandatory & widely‑used recommended properties to maximise interoperability and cross‑catalogue search while staying minimal. Add richer fields later (e.g., data quality notes, accrual periodicity) once onboarding is complete.

Example (JSON‑LD sketch)

{
  "@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/dcat.jsonld",
  "@type": "dcat:Dataset",
  "dct:title": "Hospital beds per 1,000 population – Switzerland",