Metadata Quality and Discoverability in the NCCU CoDE Open Data Hub: A FAIR- and FGDC CSDGM-Informed Assessment
TL;DR
The study provides an evidence-preserving, type-aware method for applying FAIR principles alongside geospatial metadata standards in heterogeneous ArcGIS Hub catalogs and distinguishes public availability from technical reuse readiness.
Abstract
University geospatial hubs support research dissemination, teaching, public data access, and community engagement, but their value depends on whether resources can be found, accessed, interpreted, integrated, and reused. This study evaluates 747 publicly listed items in North Carolina Central University’s CoDE Open Data Hub using FAIR principles as an interpretive framework and the Federal Geographic Data Committee Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC CSDGM) as the domain-specific measurement basis. Nineteen criteria were scored on explicit criterion-specific 0–2 rules using live ArcGIS item properties, formal metadata XML, and available layer properties. Discoverability was evaluated for a proportionally stratified sample of 153 items through exact-title, keyword, location, item-type, category-browsing, and click-depth tests. The equal-criterion benchmark averaged 28.57 of 38 (75.19%); equal FAIR-dimension weighting produced a mean of 73.26%, and 95.85% of items retained the same descriptive performance band. Independent rescoring of 50 stratified items produced 76.74% exact criterion-level agreement, a linear weighted Cohen’s kappa of 0.587, and an absolute-agreement ICC of 0.715 for total scores. FAIR-aligned scores were highest for Findability (87.25%) and Accessibility (85.96%), followed by Reusability (67.26%) and Interoperability (52.59%). Exact-title and item-type searches retrieved all sampled items, while keyword search was successful for 88.24%. The results distinguish public availability from technical reuse readiness and identify spatial reference, attribute definitions, lineage, limitations, category structure, and navigation depth as priorities. The performance bands are study-specific descriptive summaries rather than FGDC compliance levels or FAIR certification. The study provides an evidence-preserving, type-aware method for applying FAIR principles alongside geospatial metadata standards in heterogeneous ArcGIS Hub catalogs.