Text and photo: Kaisa Järvelä
National Catalogue Helps Researchers Discover Valuable Data
The National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL), Statistics Finland and the Finnish Social Science Data Archive have combined their forces to develop the description of national data. The Isaacus pre-production project, funded by Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, was launched in July and will end in December 2017.
During the course of one and a half years, the aim is to produce description data for several datasets frequently used in health and welfare research. The project's pilot datasets include surveys and register data from THL, Statistics Finland, the Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa and the Hospital District of Southwest Finland.
The most important product of the project is a national data catalogue in which the metadata of the pilot datasets are to be published online. There is also a plan to develop a description and maintenance tool that would make consistent description work at the data collection organisations easier.
Service operator requires data catalogue
'The service operator developed in the Isaacus project needs a data catalogue to function', states Isaacus' project manager, Arto Vuori.
The service operator collects register and other data produced by various parties into a single place. The data catalogue will therefore also include data from several authorities and data producers. This will only work smoothly with a common model and consistent tools for producing the data descriptions. Besides the data catalogue, consistent description data are also needed in the electronic service for applying for user permits, currently under development in another Isaacus project.
Besides the data catalogue, consistent description data are also needed in the electronic service for applying for user permits, currently under development in another Isaacus project.
Development Manager of the THL's Information Services Arto Vuori presented the metadata project to stakeholders at a workshop organised in Helsinki in October 2016.
Why are metadata needed?
Good description data help data remain retrievable, understandable, functional and reliable for their whole life cycle.
Good description data enable data management, automatic data processing, references and the creation of various services, such as data catalogues and question banks.
