Q: What is meant by a 'metadata page' at the time of submission?
A journal manager has asked me to provide an online submission page (metadata page) for my manuscript. Could you please tell me what this means? What should I do?
Metadata is ‘data about data.’ In this case, the original ‘data’ is your submitted manuscript. So, the metadata here would be ‘data about your manuscript.’ This would include any of the title, keywords, abstract, author name(s), author affiliations, ORCID information, and so on. Metadata is meant to help search engines find your article more easily, that is, make it more ‘discoverable.’ Therefore, you should make the metadata as comprehensive as possible.
Journals typically provide this information on their author guidelines or submission pages, even providing a form. So, you should look up these pages (or those with similar titles) on the journal’s site. If not, you could check with the manager/editor. However, if they are not able to provide this or would rather that you provide this, you could refer to this resource (go to Figure 5.25. Submission Metadata) and include the necessary information in a text document and send to the manager/editor. When doing so, you could tell them that you have done the best you could based on your understanding, but if they need edits or more information, you would be happy to do so based on further guidance they provide.
Hope that helps. You may also benefit by going through the following related resources. The last article (‘How to make Web searches more precise’) will help you consider the importance of metadata from the other side – that of a reader searching for literature.
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