Administrative Core

The Administrative Core describes how a dataset and its associated resources are identified, attributed, and managed. It helps readers distinguish a resource, recognize the people and organizations responsible for it, and understand its conditions of reuse.

Administrative metadata are the recorded descriptions of identity, attribution, and reuse. The Administrative Core provides the concepts and relationships for this information as one of the three complementary cores in the ARC Abstract Model.

#Identity, responsibility, and reuse

Administrative descriptions can include identifiers and titles, contributors and organizational affiliations, rights, and version information. These are examples of the information this perspective addresses, rather than a checklist of required fields.

Such information matters throughout research. Contributors may be recorded as work proceeds; rights and version information may develop as resources are prepared for sharing. Keeping these descriptions connected to the dataset helps carry responsibility and management context from the workspace into publication.

#A shared example

Consider a dataset containing a table of experimental measurements and a derived analysis result. Its administrative metadata can identify the dataset, name its contributors, record their affiliations, and state the conditions governing reuse.

This helps a reader understand which research output they are using and whom to credit. Version information can help distinguish that output from related revisions. These descriptions complement, rather than replace, explanations of the measurements and analysis.

#Connected to scientific context

The semantic core explains the measured variables and their units. The provenance core connects the measurements to acquisition and the derived result to its analysis inputs and process.

Together, these perspectives allow a dataset to be identified, interpreted, and traced. They can share entities and relationships; the categories do not require separate files or isolated records.

#Representation and publication

ARC RO-Crate profiles express the administrative perspective in the publication representation alongside provenance and semantic context. This conceptual overview explains its purpose; the corresponding representation profile is where concrete encoding and conformance requirements belong.

Identifiers, rights descriptions, and attribution support reuse, but reliable access and long-term availability also depend on the services and stewardship supporting the published research output.