Dublin Core — Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
Overview
Dublin Core is a metadata standard providing 15 basic elements (title, creator, subject, description, publisher, contributor, date, type, format, identifier, source, language, relation, coverage, rights) for describing any resource. Originating from a 1995 workshop in Dublin, Ohio, it became an ISO standard (ISO 15836) and is used as a base metadata layer in many research data repositories, publication archives, and digital libraries.
The 15 Dublin Core Elements
| Element | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
dc:title | Name of the resource | ”Neuroimaging cohort data” |
dc:creator | Author or PI | ”Jane Smith” |
dc:subject | Keywords or topic | ”Alzheimer, neuroimaging, longitudinal” |
dc:description | Abstract or summary | Free-text description |
dc:publisher | Institution or repository | ”Zenodo” |
dc:date | Publication date | ”2024-03-15” |
dc:identifier | DOI or persistent ID | ”https://doi.org/10.5281/…” |
dc:format | File format | ”NIfTI, BIDS” |
dc:rights | License | ”CC BY 4.0” |
Connections
- Extended by: DCAT (adds dataset-specific concepts)
Resources
- https://dublincore.org
- https://www.dublincore.org/specifications/dublin-core/dcmi-terms/ (full terms)
- https://validator.dublincore.org (metadata validator)