NFDI4Culture Metadata API

Authors: Jonathan D. Geiger, Marina Lemaire, Petra Steiner, Dorothee Urbaum

Framework and background

Open Educational Resources (OER) to promote data literacy and research data management (RDM) play a central role in the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI) and beyond. Many RDM projects and networks are concerned with the creation, collection and sustainable provision of such materials as well as with questions of curation and linking. The FAIR principles can be applied to OER as well as to research data.
On 5 and 6 February 2025, a workshop was held at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences with representatives of the DALIA, NFDI4Memory, NFDI4Culture, Text+, KonsortSWD, HERMES, QUADRIGA, KODAQs, SODa and WiNoDa projects. The participants presented the status of their projects, discussed current challenges in interactive formats and worked out possible solutions. The atmosphere was productive and the dialogue was perceived as valuable. Several task forces were formed to continue the discussions started at the workshop in order to work on specific tasks in the long term. The workshop followed on from the DALIA, NFDI4Memory, NFDI4Culture, HERMES and QUADRIGA workshop in April 2024. This can be recapitulated here: https://dalia.education/de/news/20240901_die-vernetzung-von-akteuren-und-ressourcen-oer-in-der-nfdi-und-in-den-datenkompetenzzentren-ein-workshopbericht

Persona workshop

The ‘Data Literacy’ task area of NFDI4Memory and the ‘Open Educational Resources’ format of the HERMES data competence centre jointly held a persona workshop as part of the workshop. With the help of specially developed personas, the needs of different target groups - from students to professors - were systematically analysed when dealing with OER in order to be able to develop tailor-made offers based on this. Key challenges such as barriers to use, motivation and institutional incentives were highlighted and potential identified in intensive discussions. The personas developed and the findings on needs-based OER will be published soon.

Phase 1: Topic discussion

Table 1: Metadata
The discussion focused on the standardisation and curation of metadata for OER. Controlled vocabularies, picklists and attributes were identified as key requirements, particularly for scientific disciplines (Destatis vs. DFG), learning resource types and target groups. It was emphasised that clear rules for curation and definition are necessary. There is also a lack of knowledge about the actual use of OER, which makes it difficult to develop and adapt metadata in a more targeted way.

Table 2: Reuse and sustainability
A key problem is the lack of a culture of sharing and reusing OER. Many teachers do not know where they can search for materials and perceive the preparation of their own content as OER as an additional effort. Quality checks - both in terms of content and didactics - were considered necessary, as were clear licence details. Measures to promote OER include peer review processes, community-based development, better findability through semantic web technologies and the introduction of an OER award at specialist conferences.

Table 3: Search strategies and techniques
The discussion covered the optimisation of search functions for OER, including minimalist or AI-supported searches. The quality of metadata plays a crucial role in findability, where social tagging and ontologies can help. The integration of knowledge graphs and learning path-based recommendations were mentioned as possibilities. In addition, handouts should be developed to support teachers in their search for OER. The sustainable retrievability of older versions and the programming of efficient search tools remains a challenge.

Table 4: Collection criteria and quality
Various criteria were discussed for the quality assurance of OER, including peer review procedures, community decisions and target group orientation. A balance between completeness and curated selection is crucial, as are transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria. Particular challenges relate to the technical integration of different platforms and the differentiation from traditional teaching materials. FAIR principles should also be applied to OER in order to ensure better findability and long-term availability.

Phase 2: Consolidation

Table 1: Project plan for RDM basic OER
The consortia and data competence centres involved in the workshop jointly developed a plan for modular OER on the topic of research data management. The content was organised thematically into clusters according to the learning objectives matrix (Petersen et al., 2023), including basics, legal aspects, data processing, documentation and publication. The modules should be flexibly adaptable to different teaching contexts and promote research-based learning through case studies. Clear definitions, interactive elements and a practical approach are particularly important. Planned next steps include the creation of course scripts, teaching scripts and slide sets. A glossary of important terms and abbreviations is also to be developed. Following the workshop, a working group was formed that has been meeting weekly since the workshop to further develop the ideas.

Table 2: Picklists
The discussion centred on the definition of competence levels and target groups for OER. Existing models such as the Dreyfus model were discussed, but it was emphasised that too many levels could overwhelm users. A clear distinction was made between the attributes of competence level, target group and subject discipline. The definition of target groups should be based on the expertise of the addressees in their (working) domain (e.g. academic environment or library). A list of target groups was drawn up, ranging from students to researchers and citizen scientists. The competence level indicates the requirement level of the topic covered by the OER and is therefore based on the prerequisites that the learners must have and the intended learning objectives. Some available vocabularies for the required picklists were critically reviewed and it was found that they are often not sufficiently defined and/or incomplete. A group will continue to address this problem in order to improve the findability and comparable description of OERs.

Table 3: Quality criteria
Various quality criteria for OER were compiled, including formal (e.g. licensing, accessibility), content-related (e.g. subject-specific accuracy, topicality), structural (e.g. modularity, clear structure) and technical (e.g. open formats). Didactic aspects, such as adaptation to learning levels, were also discussed. The quality of OER collections was also discussed, with factors such as completeness, visibility and curation playing a role. Challenges exist in particular in the practical implementation and the definition of selection and evaluation mechanisms. One possible solution would be the development of checklists or guidelines to determine the quality of materials and collections. Overall, a distinction can be made between quality criteria 1. for the metadata of the materials, 2. for the collections and collections and 3. for the search functionalities. A working group will also address this topic and problem area beyond the workshop.

Outlook

To summarise, it can be said that the subject area of open educational resources for data literacy and RDM is very heterogeneous and that many requirements from different specialist communities need to be brought together, even if we ‘only’ focus on the humanities and social sciences. Nevertheless, progress can be seen in the discourse: The current neuralgic points are different from a year ago; for example, fundamental technical questions about repositories, metadata schemas and collection methods seem to have receded into the background, as they are considered to have been sufficiently dealt with. Instead, specialised questions about more specific, more suitable picklists, quality concepts and joint FDM training materials now play a greater role.

The exchange in this group continues to be rated as meaningful and fruitful. The follow-up to the last workshop in April 2024 was successful and the expansion of the circle of participating projects brought in further useful perspectives, whereby similarities and differences became clear, but synergies for cooperation were also identified. Further contact between the projects is to be realised via various communication channels (regular meetings, a mailing list, a channel in NFDI RocketChat) so that the three working groups established (1. FDM-Basis-OER, 2. Metadata for OER and 3. Quality criteria in connection with OER) can continue their work from the workshop. A follow-up workshop in about a year's time would also appear to make sense.

Literature

Petersen, B., Altemeier, F., Boße, S., Düvel, N., Engelhardt, C., Fichtner, M., Hastik, C., Haugwitz, J.-M., Jacob, J., Koch, K., Kuntz, A., Manske, A., Mühlichen, A., Murcia Serra, J., Ortmeyer, J., Richter, M., Schranzhofer, H., Slowig, B., Trautwein-Bruns, U., ... Zollitsch, L. (2025). Lernzielmatrix zum Themenbereich Forschungsdatenmanagement (FDM) (Version 3). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15025246