Metadata Schema for Managing Digital Data and Images of Thai Human Skulls

This research was aimed at developing metadata that meets international standards for the purpose of managing digital data and images of Thai human skulls for medical studies. The research was conducted by applying the Metadata Lifecycle Model of the Metadata Architecture and Application Team. The model comprises four steps: requirement assessment and content analysis, identification of metadata requirements, metadata schema development, and metadata service and evaluation. The research outcome was a metadata schema composed of four modules, seven data element sets, and 29 pieces of data, each of which had six sets of property descriptions. Metadata evaluation conducted by three specialists in the field of anatomy and forensic medicine and three experts in the field of information science and metadata through free retrieval based on the Continuum of Metadata Quality in four aspects revealed that the experts were satisfied with the quality of metadata at a very high level: 100% for completeness, accuracy, and accessibility, and 94% for conformance to expectations. The developed metadata contain details that can be used to describe the characteristics of human skulls, with consideration taken in the development of the language used, retrieval, access, data exchange, and sharing. Thus, this novel metadata schema can be of use in management of digital data and images of human skulls for the purposes of medical studies, i.e., human anatomy and forensic anthropology.