Assessing metadata and curation quality: a case study from the development of a third-party curation service at Springer Nature

Since 2017, Springer Nature has provided an optional Research Data Support service to help researchers deposit and curate data that support their peer-reviewed publications. This service builds on a Research Data Helpdesk, which since 2016 has provided support to authors and editors who need advice on the options available for sharing their research data. This paper describes a short project which aimed to facilitate an objective assessment of metadata quality, undertaken during the development of a third-party curation service for researchers (Research Data Support). The curation services which have been developed and introduced are also described.