Suggestion for new metadata property: Hash

[Peter Blattner]

Hi all,

Often datasets are provided with checksums or hashes so that the data integrity can be checked. I therefore suggest that there is an additional parameter in the DataCite Metadata scheme, namely:

property: HashValue  
occurance: 0-n

subproperty: HashMethod
examples of methods: MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA516,CRC32

[Peter Blattner]

Dear DataCite experts,

Since I have not yet received a response to my request and I suspect that I have not very clearly formulated my issue, respectively the justification of my request was too superficial. So here is another try: An important aspect for the FAIR Data Principle 3 (interoperability) is data integrity. This can typically be guaranteed by means of a checksum/hash function. From my point of view it would be very helpful if a checksum could be stored in the DataCite schema, together with the indication which checksum generator was used. I would be interested if you, DataCite experts see this as well and if so would it be possible to include an additional field in the next release? By the way, what is the schedule for a next release? Thank you very much for your efforts.

Peter

[Ted Habermann]

Peter,

Sorry to miss your earlier email. It snuck into my junk folder!

I agree completely that checksums play an important role in interoperability and data integrity and are important for datasets (DOIs) that are composed of a single file. Not sure how they would be handled in datasets with multiple files unless each had a separate DOI.

In the single file case, because the checksums are unique and related only to a single instance of a particular file, I think the existing alternateIdentifier element of the schema could be a reasonable place for checksums…

Does that make sense?

Ted

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