EMBL-EBI Perspective. ‘At European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), we see a clear alignment between our metadata initiatives and the goals of COMET (the Collaborative Metadata Enrichment Taskforce). COMET calls on institutions, repositories, and service providers to work together in enriching metadata in ways that are open, trusted, and scalable. Our internal initiative, ENRICH (Enhancing Open Infrastructure with Research Information and Curated High-Quality Metadata), is direct aligned to this call. What follows is a deeper look into the motivations behind our work and how EMBL’s effort supports and extends the COMET model.’

Interview with COMET participant, Bhavesh Patel.

Cameron Neylon gives us his perspectives on the potential for collaboratively enriched metadata in research.

Interview with COMET participant Howard Ratner from CHORUS.

Interview with COMET participant, Cristina Huidiu, Wageningen University & Research.

‘A model where universities divert the resources they spend on curating proprietary databases to an open infrastructure who curates the metadata openly for all downstream providers to use (including the proprietary systems!) is particularly exciting.’

“From my position within a funder, our interests are focused on improving research discoverability across a range of research outputs and enhancing our ability to understand the reach and use of those outputs. We want to contribute the enrichments we have made within our systems with others in the community.”

Through extensive stakeholder consultation, COMET has identified the critical need for improving PID metadata through community-driven enrichment… COMET now looks to transition this work into a development phase and seeks strategic partners who can provide financial support, technical expertise, and operational guidance to ensure the infrastrastructure's successful implementation and long-term sustainability.

The following was provided as a read-ahead to the listening sessions conducted on February 18, 2025. Comments on the document are combined with those from the listening session and summarized in the participant comments section.

The following was provided as a read-ahead to the listening sessions conducted on January 23, 2025. Comments on the document are combined with those from the listening session and summarized in the participant comments section. 

We’re excited to share that the Collaborative Metadata Enrichment Taskforce (COMET) is now an official FORCE11 Working Group.

This post includes a Product Development Outline by COMET convener, Adam Buttrick; and aggregated comments from COMET participant read-ahead feedback and listening sessions on December 19, 2024.

The introductory sessions for the Collaborative Metadata Enrichment Taskforce (COMET) were held on November 7, 2024. To accommodate different time zones, two sessions were held, hosting the same presentations at each and including a break for group discussion. The following provides a summary of the presented content and summarizes the discussions for both sessions. The sessions were convened and presented by John Chodacki (California Digital Library); Adam Buttrick (California Digital Library/ROR); Juan Pablo Alperin (Simon Fraser University/Public Knowledge Project); and Clare Dean (COMET).

In the rapidly evolving landscape of research, the importance of high-quality metadata and persistent identifiers (PIDs) cannot be overstated. PIDs and metadata are the connective tissue that binds together diverse research outputs, enabling discovery, accessibility, and reuse. Despite their critical role, the current model for metadata creation and enrichment is fraught with inefficiencies. Routinely, the task of improving metadata falls solely on PID creators or occurs within isolated, service-level silos. This fragmented approach leads to significant gaps in quality and coverage, creating barriers to the seamless integration and use of research information across platforms.