A metadata and data entry and editing tool using ontologies for knowledge graph creation

Making research reproducible and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) often requires more information than what is commonly published within scientific articles. There is a growing number of repositories for publishing additional material like data or code. However, articles are still at the center of most scientific work and thus efforts on gathering information which is important for reproducibility but not for the article itself are often only started at a later stage. This usually makes the collection more tedious, error-prone, and less comprehensive.

In order to lower the barrier for recording all relevant information directly when it is generated, we propose a design for a data and metadata entry and editing tool. It should allow researchers to create metadata for the files and assets which they already have and offer a possibility for structured entry of new data. To support consistent (meta)data entry over time, the user will be able to create forms which can enforce comprehensiveness and correctness. Furthermore, data FAIRness is supported through the automated usage of established ontologies for (meta)data annotation. This will be done by a background process so the user isn´t involved in these technologies. Nevertheless the tool will grant further possibilities to those who are aware of ontologies used in their domain. Resources can be referenced consistently across (meta)data sets of many stakeholders through identifiers provided by central sources. In conjunction, the usage of these common identifiers and ontologies forms large knowledge graphs of the data recorded with our tool.

This contribution will be a discussion of the various components of such a tool, potentially used metadata standards, possible variations, important features, and most relevant: How it can be useful for your work!