Metadata for MLA’s final report library

Summary

MLA has improved the accessibility of its R&D deliverables by refining the speed and accuracy of the search function that stakeholders use on the MLA website to find final reports; this involves tagging final reports with metadata.

This project fast‐tracked the tagging of reports with metadata by engaging a consultant to scan 3,600 of MLA’s final reports to assign seven (7) of the 31 points of metadata required for each MLA project.

Objectives

For each of the 3,600 MLA final reports, the vendor reviewed the project and assigned five (5) plain-English keywords and three (3) topics to each document that are likely to be searched for by non-subject matter experts, as per the guidelines set out by the international scientific publisher, Springer.

Benefits to industry

This project has helped to ensure that MLA's final reports (and related summaries) can be easily found on mla.com.au when searched for by stakeholders. The metadata assigned to each project will be key in supporting the new search functionality.

Assigning searchable metadata to each MLA project creates the opportunity to maintain consistent and comprehensive outputs to stakeholders that are easy to locate online.