RO-Crate Metadata Specification 1.2.0

Web-version: https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.2 This document specifies a method, known as RO-Crate (Research Object Crate), of aggregating and describing data for distribution, re-use, publishing, preservation and archiving. RO-Crates aggregate data into a Dataset, and may describe any resource including files, URI-addressable resources, or use other addressing schemes to locate digital or physical data. Describing resources includes technical metadata such as file sizes and types as well as contextual information including how datasets and files were created, and where, how they were collated and collected, who was involved in the process, what equipment and software was used, who funded the work, how to cite it, and crucially, how it may be reused, and by whom. The core of RO-Crate is a machine-readable linked-data document in JSON-LD format known as an RO-Crate Metadata Document. RO-Crate metadata documents can to a large extent be created and processed just like any other JSON: knowledge of JSON-LD is not needed, unless extending RO-Crate with additional concepts or combining RO-Crate with other Linked Data technologies. This document, the RO-Crate specification, introduces the general RO-Crate concepts through a running example, adding normative pages that define in more detail these and other concepts using separate examples and recommendations.