MS14 Inventory of existing (meta-)data format interoperability solutions

This document reports on the SSHOC project Milestone 14 inventory process and results. Earlier work of task 3.5 delivered D3.1 Report on SSHOC (meta)data interoperability problems, which provided an inventory of metadata and data formats used by the SSHOC communities, recommendations for metadata standards and data file formats, and priorities for providing conversion services. MS14 report provides an inventory of existing metadata and data format conversion solutions, technology and practices relevant to the social sciences and humanities per D3.1. These conversion solutions will provide the content for the SSHOC Interoperability Hub and are a starting point for better interoperability. Limitation of scope to (meta)data conversions is explained in D3.1.

When investigating (meta)data conversion solutions, the team has identified two groups of solutions:

1. A ready to use web-service that is provided by a research infrastructure, research center or organisation, or a commercial company;
2. Complex solutions that can entail the use of several services and manual steps. In the remainder of this report, this type of solutions are referred to as conversion recipes that need to be well-documented.

The sources used in the inventory process were D3.1, re-analysis of the expert interviews conducted in spring 2019, desk research to collect information about existing solutions, and different available SSH service registries and other information sources, e.g. TAPoR, CLAPOP, CLARIN VLO, PARTHENOS SSK, and DDI Tools.