There are three types of administrative metadata: technical metadata, rights management metadata and preservation metadata.
Technical metadata is used for recording the technical attributes of digital objects or datasets which helps a researcher and/or a repository manage digital objects over time. Some of the technical metadata include: the hardware and software used to acquire the digital object, file formats for master and derivatives, resolutions, color profiles, storage and location.
Some technical metadata standards include: NISO Metadata for Images in XML (MIX), TextMD, NISO Z39.87 Data Dictionary – Technical Metadata for Digital Still Images and AES standards by the Audio Engineering Society.
Technical metadata can be included in preservation metadata (PREMIS) or structural metadata (METS). The library’s digital initiative and metadata services draw on technical metadata standards developed by experts and define basic technical metadata for all resources and datasets in institutional data repositories and additional technical metadata for specific formats in domain repositories.
For rights metadata, the common metadata standards such as Dublin Core include a “rights” field. Any known intellectual property rights held for the data, including access rights and rights holder, can be specified in that field. Some digital repositories provide an opportunity to assign a Creative Commons license to the materials or datasets deposited in the repository.
There are other Right Metadata standards including CopyrightMD, METSRights, ONIX For Publications Licenses, Open Digital Rights Language and XrML.
PREMIS Data Dictionary for Preservation Metadata is the international standard for metadata to support the preservation of digital objects and ensure their long-term usability. The PREMIS data model defines a number of properties of preservation significance for digital objects, events, agents, rights and permissions, and the relationships between these entities. PREMIS’ data dictionary and a set of XML schema are available at http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/. In searching for a data repository, the library can help researchers to check if it has incorporated PREMIS into its system.