Metadata Quality Evaluation of a Repository Based on a Sample Technique.

In this paper, we evaluate the quality of the metadata of an OAI-compliant repository based on the completeness metric proposed by X. Ochoa and E. Duval. This study focuses on the completeness of the metadata records as defined by M.A. Sicilia et , where machine-understandability is a mandatory requirement for completeness. The goal is to use the completeness metric as a tool for harvesters and repository managers to evaluate easily the quality of the metadata of a repository. We focus on the metadata used by the communities of agriculture, aquaculture and environment from the VOA3R project. The OceanDocs repository serves as a use case. The completeness metric is used on a sample of records from the repository. The paper concludes that in the opinion of the authors quality evaluation is not a global process, but depends on the context. The completeness metric have to be used on the specific elements, relevant for the specific community.