The State of Scholarly Metadata: 2023 - The Scholarly Kitchen

"As scholarly communication rapidly adapts to seismic shifts in open science, technology, and culture, a renewed focus has emerged on metadata and persistent identifiers (PIDs) — about people, places, and objects — as an essential component of a vibrant industry. At the US policy level alone, leveraging metadata to accelerate industry transformation is a common theme across the Nelson Memo and recent Requests for Information from the NIH and the Department of Transportation.

Scholarly research is complex and interconnected; change in one area can spark improvement or deterioration throughout the ecosystem. By way of example, consider the role of PIDs in open access (OA) funding entitlements....

Many stakeholders we interviewed recognize that new metadata strategies, inclusive policies, and a robust framework of interoperable systems are essential for modernizing this element of scholarly communications. It’s also clear that an ecosystem-wide commitment to improving data quality across all groups will facilitate the transition to open while helping to preserve research integrity, expand discoverability, and improve impact measurement. If the industry works collectively to shrink these gaps by reexamining metadata policy and practice, stakeholders will undoubtedly feel less pain. Or, we can continue the current system of entropy, friction, and frustration...."