NTRES 6600: Research Data Management Seminar: Tools and Training: Data Quality and Documentation

Database of taxonomic nomenclature. Web service APIs are available (http://www.itis.gov/ws_description.html).

"Metacat is a repository for data and metadata (documentation about data) that helps scientists find, understand and effectively use data sets they manage or that have been created by others. Thousands of data sets are currently documented in a standardized way and stored in Metacat systems, providing the scientific community with a broad range of science data that–because the data are well and consistently described–can be easily searched, compared, merged, or used in other ways."

"Morpho allows you to create and manage your data, and to share it with others. It was created to provide an easy-to-use, cross-platform application for accessing and manipulating metadata and data (both locally and on the network).

Morpho allows ecologists to create EML metadata, (i.e. describe their data in a standardized format), and create a catalog of data & metadata upon which to query, edit and view data collections. In addition, It also provides the means to access network servers, in order to query, view and retrieve all relevant, public ecological data!"

List of free and licensed tools for working with and creating DDI (Data Documentation Initiative) metadata.

DDI add-on for Microsoft Excel - "a free tool to document your spreadsheet data using the open standard for data documentation."