Developing a data set-level metadata structure (metadata metadata?)

[juniperlsimonis]

In order to document our work, allow for reproducibility and continuous updates, and filter the compiled data sets for specific analyses, we need to have a good structure for our data set-level metadata.

I'm really new to this whole "compilations of compilations of data" level of doing work, so I'm kind of starting from scratch here and grabbing what I've found from our other projects in the lab. Please feel free to add/edit/etc.

Suggested fields:

• Name
• Reference (linked source)
• Citation
• Description (general text)
• Taxa
• Organizational level (population, community, etc)
• Environmental data/covariates available