Metadata & PID Workflows: Joint Workshop for ELN and DMP Tools

Sep 22, 2025, 12:30 PM → Sep 23, 2025, 1:00 PM Europe/Berlin

K1A+B (Berlin)

Antonia Schrader (Helmholtz Open Science Office), Stephanie Hagemann-Wilholt (German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB))

Digital research tools like Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) and Data Management Planning (DMP) systems are critical for early-stage metadata capture and documenting research processes. These tools increasingly support Persistent Identifier (PID) workflows, either by referencing existing identifiers or enabling PID registration for core research entities like datasets, samples, instruments, methods, and projects.

Capturing rich metadata at the earliest stages of research can:

• Enhance metadata quality at the point of creation.

• Minimize metadata loss in downstream systems.

• Facilitate PID registration, linkage, and reusability.

 

The workshop was hosted by PID4NFDI. The project supports the development of sustainable PID infrastructures and integration strategies across the NFDI landscape, ensuring metadata from ELNs and DMPs aligns with PID requirements to achieve higher metadata quality and enable automated, interoperable workflows.

This workshop gathered ELN and DMP tool developers, metadata specialists, and stakeholders from NFDI consortia to:

• Validate and Extend the Metadata Framework
  • Review the metadata your tools currently capture for key research entities (e.g., samples, datasets, instruments).
    
    
• Enable Seamless PID Workflows
  • Explore practical use cases for integrating PIDs (e.g., ePICs, DOIs, IGSNs) directly into your workflows.
    
    
• Define and Measure Metadata Completeness
  • Establish a shared understanding of what constitutes “good enough” metadata for your infrastructure.
  • Develop quality indicators, completeness thresholds, and scoring or validation mechanisms to guide users.
    
    
• Explore Interoperability Solutions
  • Discover how TS4NFDI tools can connect your solutions with others to enable smooth cross-system data flows.
  • Identify opportunities to develop and test your use cases as incubator projects supported by both PID4NFDI and TS4NFDI.
    

 

Target group were developers and technical architects of ELN and DMP tools. Metadata and interoperability experts from NFDI consortia, and representatives from incubator projects focusing on ELN/DMP integration.

Organizational Aspects

The conference was conducted in English. 

Registration for on-site participation was limited to 20 people. Lighting talk sessions on Day 1 and 2 of the workshop were streamed online via Zoom.

The speaker's slides are published via Zenodo and can be found in the timetable.

The speakers' slides are published via Zenodo.

Mon, September 22

1 Arrival

2 Welcome

Organizational Points,
Code of Conduct,
Expectations on the workshop

Speaker: Antonia Schrader (Helmholtz Open Science Office)

3 PID Coordination Hub - Driving FAIR, Open and Persistent Research Practices

To kick things off, Sara El-Gebali, who is a metadata specialist at DataCite and a project member, introduced PID4NFDI. She explained its mission and the crucial role of PIDs in Electronic Lab Notebooks (ELNs) and Data Management Plans (DMPs).

Speaker: Sara El-Gebali (DataCite)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17207964

Lightning talks

4 Opportunities and Challenges for Common ELN Object Metadata

Tilo Mathes, Product manager and open source lead at ResearchSpace, gave a brief look at the RSpace ELN tool.

Speaker: Tilo Mathes (ResearchSpace)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17190392

5 ORCID iDs within DMPs and ELN

Paloma Marin-Arraiza, Associate Director of Engagement at ORCID, explored the use of ORCID iDs within DMPs and ELNs.

Speaker: Paloma Marin-Arraiza (ORCID Inc.)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17190322

6 PID usage in the NOMAD RDM Software

NOMAD is an RDM software for simulation, experiment and synthesis data developed by the NFDI consortium FAIRmat. This presentation shows how we use DataCite to create DOIs for NOMAD datasets and how our customizable ELN system allows you to define data fields for storing PIDs and automatically filling these fields using custom logic.

Speaker: Sascha Klawohn (FAIRMat)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17190437

7 Tear down the walls! - A guide to combine terminology services with other services.

An overarching research data management across all domains is built upon metadata describing research data and their generation. In order to ensure that disciplines can create and share a common understanding of the concepts and relations used to describe data, we need terminologies as a formal representation of domain knowledge. The primary objective of Terminology Services 4 NFDI (TS4NFDI) is to standardise and harmonise terminology services, establishing an interoperable and sustainable solution.

Speaker: Roman Baum (ZB MED)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17190475

2:35 PM Break

Breakout Discussion: Introduction

There will be two breakout groups at the time.

Group 1:
Overall Goal: Understand how RSpace as an example for ELN provider services maps metadata to existing standards; identify potentials for metadata enrichment, KPIs to measure metadata quality, sketch interoperability workflows

Group 2:
Overall Goal: Improve DMP template with PID integration, align with DataCite/NFDI, and design quality KPIs & flows

Conveners: Sara El-Gebali (DataCite), Stephanie Hagemann-Wilholt (German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB))

Breakout Discussion: Breakout 1: Interoperability

There will be two breakout groups at the time.

Group 1:
Overall Goal: Understand how RSpace as an example for ELN provider services maps metadata to existing standards; identify potentials for metadata enrichment, KPIs to measure metadata quality, sketch interoperability workflows

Group 2:
Overall Goal: Improve DMP template with PID integration, align with DataCite/NFDI, and design quality KPIs & flows

Breakout Discussion: Report back

There will be two breakout groups at the time.

Group 1:
Overall Goal: Understand how RSpace as an example for ELN provider services maps metadata to existing standards; identify potentials for metadata enrichment, KPIs to measure metadata quality, sketch interoperability workflows

Group 2:
Overall Goal: Improve DMP template with PID integration, align with DataCite/NFDI, and design quality KPIs & flows

8 Wrap-Up Day 1 and Outlook

Speaker: Antonia Schrader (Helmholtz Open Science Office)

9 Optional: Dinner (self-pay basis)

Dinner together on a self-pay basis at Restaurant Aposto,

Tue, September 23

10 Arrival

11 Aims for Day 2

12 Discussion on training materials, needs and wishes

On the second day of the 'Metadata & PID Workflows: Joint Workshop for ELN and DMP Tools', Torsten Kahlert, a project member of PID4NFDI from TIB, led a discussion on training materials, needs and wishes. This provided the audience, both in person and online, with a valuable opportunity to influence the development of future community support resources.

Speaker: Torsten Kahlert (TIB)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17201002

Lightning talks

13 PIDs in eLabFTW (pre-recorded)

At the workshop 'Metadata & PID Workflows: Joint Workshop for ELN and DMP Tools', which was hosted by the BASE4NFDI-funded project PID4NFDI, Nicolas Carpi, founder of Deltablot, gave a presentation on the ELN services provided by Deltablot.

Speaker: Nicolas Carpi (Deltablot)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17200891

14 The state of PIDINST - Exploring the data on research instruments with PIDs

At the workshop 'Metadata & PID Workflows: Joint Workshop for ELN and DMP Tools', which was hosted by the BASE4NFDI-funded project PID4NFDI, Frederik Springer presented PIDInst, a tool for discovering instrument PIDs.

Speaker: Frederik Springer (TIB)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17191322

15 DMP4NFDI - Service for DMPs/SMPs across the NFDI

Sabine Schönau from RWTH Aachen University, provided an overview of the BASE4NFDI-funded service DMP4NFDI.

Speaker: Sabine Schönau (RWTH Aachen University)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17192500

16 A reference example for Tool Interoperability: The MaLDReTH Map

Rory Macneil from ResearchSpace presented the MaLDReTH Map as a reference example for tool interoperability.

Speaker: Rory Macneil (ResearchSpace)

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17192563

10:30 AM Break

Breakout Discussion: Breakout 2: Metadata quality and completeness

There will be two breakout groups at the time.

Group 1:
Overall Goal: Understand how RSpace as an example for ELN provider services maps metadata to existing standards; identify potentials for metadata enrichment, KPIs to measure metadata quality, sketch interoperability workflows

Group 2:
Overall Goal: Improve DMP template with PID integration, align with DataCite/NFDI, and design quality KPIs & flows

11:30 AM Break

Breakout Discussion: Breakout 3: Technical developments

There will be two breakout groups at the time.

Group 1:
Overall Goal: Understand how RSpace as an example for ELN provider services maps metadata to existing standards; identify potentials for metadata enrichment, KPIs to measure metadata quality, sketch interoperability workflows

Group 2:
Overall Goal: Improve DMP template with PID integration, align with DataCite/NFDI, and design quality KPIs & flows

Breakout Discussion: Report back

There will be two breakout groups at the time.

Group 1:
Overall Goal: Understand how RSpace as an example for ELN provider services maps metadata to existing standards; identify potentials for metadata enrichment, KPIs to measure metadata quality, sketch interoperability workflows

Group 2:
Overall Goal: Improve DMP template with PID integration, align with DataCite/NFDI, and design quality KPIs & flows

17 Closing

Wrap-Up, Evaluation round, Outlook project

Speaker: Antonia Schrader (Helmholtz Open Science Office)