Abstract
Dealing with research data management can be a complex task, and recent guidelines prompt researchers to actively participate in this activity. Emergent research data platforms are proposing workflows to motivate researchers to take an active role in the management of their data. Other tools, such as electronic laboratory notebooks, can be embedded in the laboratory environment to ease the collection of valuable data and metadata as soon as it is available. This paper reports an extension of the previously developed LabTablet application to gather data and metadata for different research domains. Along with this extension, we present a case study from the social sciences, concerning the identification of the data description requirements for one of its domains. We argue that the LabTablet can be crucial to engage researchers in data organization and description. After starting the process, researchers can then manage their data in Dendro, a staging platform with stronger, collaborative management capabilities, which allows them to export their annotated datasets to selected research data repositories.

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Managing research data often requires the creation or reuse of specialised metadata schemas to satisfy the metadata requirements of each research group. Ontologies present several advantages over metadata schemas. In particular, they can be shared and improved upon more easily, providing the flexibility required to establish relationships between datasets and concepts from distinct domains. In this paper, we present a preliminary experiment on the use of ontologies for the description of biodiversity datasets. With a strong focus on the dynamics of individual species, species diversity, biological communities and ecosystems, the Predictive Ecology research group of CIBIO has adopted the INSPIRE European recommendation as the primary tool for metadata compliance across its research data description. We build upon this experience to model the BIOME ontology for the biodiversity domain. The ontology combines concepts from INSPIRE, matching them against the ones defined in the Dublin Core, FOAF and CERIF ontologies. Dendro, a prototype for collaborative data description, uses the ontology to provide an environment where biodiversity metadata records are available as Linked Open Data.

Abstract
Metadata production for research datasets is not a trivial problem. Standardized descriptors are convenient for interoperability, but each area requires specific descriptors in order to guarantee metadata comprehensiveness and accuracy. In this paper, we report on an ongoing research data management experience at the University of Porto (U. Porto), which led to the proposal of a domain-specific application profile. We presented two curation tools to a group of researchers from mechanical engineering, to help them manage and describe their datasets. After monitoring their interactions with the solutions and analyzing the needs of the group, we were able to select a subset of qualified Dublin Core (DC), as well as a set of complementary descriptors, to capture the main aspects of their experiments. The resulting application profile combines generic, standardized DC descriptors with descriptors from a different experimental standard, and introduces extra domain-specific ones. The profile has been validated by the researchers and is now being used in the description of their datasets. © DCMI 2013.