Getting your research discovered: The magic of metadata

How are people discovering your research? Without metadata, they don’t stand a chance.  

Metadata describes data—in the case of publications, it might be details like the title, author, date and abstract. Though it may seem small (and boring), these details do a lot of heavy lifting to ensure your research can be found by the people who need it. 

Research published in journals and books often has standardised metadata created by the publisher, which feeds into search engines and academic databases to support discovery.  

But what about grey literature? 

Without good metadata, valuable research published in reports and through conferences can be notoriously difficult to find. It may be hidden away in the pages of an organisation’s website, buried in an obscurely named PDF document, or lost altogether as webpages are relocated or become unavailable.  

Our institutional repository, Griffith Research Online (GRO), provides clear and accurate metadata to Google, Google Scholar, Unpaywall and the National Library of Australia’s Trove to promote Griffith’s world-class research globally. GRO also provides a permanent online location to store and share the full text of your research (in compliance with copyright permissions), ensuring your contribution to scholarly research is openly accessible into the future.  

Interested in getting your report or conference paper discovered? Learn more about how to deposit your research to GRO.