re3data caters to a range of needs for diverse stakeholders (Vierkant et al., 2021). Detailed and precise repository descriptions are at the heart of the majority of these use cases, and repository metadata are given special attention at the re3data registry.
Repository descriptions in re3data are based on a metadata schema that describes various aspects of research data repositories, including general scope, content, policies as well as compliance with technical and metadata standards. As the repository landscape evolves, the schema has been expanded and adapted regularly.
By now, more than ten years of work have been put into the re3data Metadata Schema - Version 1.0 of the schema was published in 2012. Over the years, more than 40 authors have contributed to the various schema versions, and many more members of the repository community have shared their expertise, needs and feedback with the service. As in previous releases, many have contributed to an open request for comments.
We are happy to announce the release of version 4.0 of the re3data Metadata Schema as of August 2023, which is now ready to be implemented in the re3data service.
We thank the repository community for their valuable feedback on the schema development. All suggestions from the public request for comments were discussed and considered for implementation. Some suggestions were adopted in version 4.0 of the re3data Metadata Schema, while the remaining feedback was documented for future reference.
In addition to other changes, version 4.0 introduces the following major changes:
relatedRepository The new property relatedRepository offers the option to describe relationships between repositories, such as between predecessors and successors.
fundingInformation With the new property fundingInformation, information on repository funding can be expressed, including funder names and identifiers.
contentType The controlled vocabulary for indexing contentType will be switched to a subset of the COAR Resource Types 3.1 vocabulary (dataset with subtypes ; image with subtypes ; software with subtypes ; text without subtypes).
