Today, we released Scientific Data’s ISA-Tab metadata specification, a document describing in detail the format we use to capture and distribute machine-readable metadata content with our Data Descriptor articles.
Most authors will not need to understand our metadata specification in detail. Metadata records will be created with the help of our in-house curation support, after manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication, and authors will not need to have any special knowledge regarding metadata creation.
Advanced users, however, will be able to submit machine-readable directly with their Data Descriptor manuscripts with the help of this metadata specification. This specification document will also be invaluable to scientists that wish to mine the metadata associated with our publications.