Fixed-Scope Diagnostic · 5 Business Days · $499
Metadata Audit Report
An expert review of up to 10,000 metadata records — identifying what is blocking Crossref deposits, degrading library-feed quality, and costing you discoverability — before you commit budget to a full remediation project.
Who This Is For
Directors of Publishing, Publishing Operations leads, and Press Directors at learned societies, university presses, and small-to-mid-sized scholarly publishers — typically with 1–5 person operations teams and no dedicated metadata engineer.
The audit is the right first step if your team suspects metadata quality is causing problems but has not yet mapped exactly where the gaps are or what fixing them would require.
Problem Solved
Poor metadata creates predictable, recurring operational failures: Crossref deposits are rejected for malformed DOIs or missing required fields; ONIX feeds are accepted by distributors but produce incorrect or incomplete catalogue records; library link resolvers point to dead pages because KBART holdings data is outdated or incomplete; discovery platforms surface fewer of your titles because abstracts, subjects, or contributors are missing.
The audit gives your team a specific, prioritized picture of which problems exist in your current metadata — and which ones to fix first.
What the Audit Covers
- Field-by-field completeness review: title, contributor, identifier (DOI/ISBN/ISSN), abstract, subject, language, publication date, and rights.
- Identifier coverage check: which records have registered DOIs, which are missing or malformed, and where gaps will cause Crossref deposit rejections or library-feed mismatches.
- Schema consistency analysis across your primary distribution format — ONIX 3.0, JATS, Crossref XML, or a custom export.
- Spot-check against KBART field requirements if your content is delivered to library knowledge bases or link resolvers.
- Prioritized findings ranked by operational impact: what is breaking feeds now, what is degrading discoverability, and what can safely wait.
What You Need to Provide
- One metadata export or source file — a Crossref deposit file, ONIX feed, JATS batch, CSV export from your publishing platform, or equivalent.
- The downstream channels this metadata feeds (e.g. Crossref, EBSCO, ProQuest, JSTOR, PubMed, your own catalogue, library knowledge bases).
- One named contact who can answer questions about field definitions or edge cases within 24 hours of the audit starting.
No platform access or system integration is required. A flat file export is all we need to start.
Deliverables
- PDF Metadata Audit Report (typically 8–14 pages) with an executive summary, field-level findings, and annotated examples drawn directly from your records.
- Prioritized issue log: every finding categorized as Critical (blocking deposits or feeds), Significant (degrading discoverability or reporting), or Minor (cosmetic or low-impact).
- Remediation estimate: a plain-language summary of what would be required to resolve each issue category — so you can decide which to fix in-house and which to bring back to Scholyx.
- One-page stakeholder summary you can circulate to publishing leadership, operations, or a board committee without sharing the full technical report.
Scope and Boundaries
The fixed price covers one audit of up to 10,000 records from a single source file or export. Records beyond that limit, or audits spanning multiple separate sources, are scoped as a follow-on project with a separate fixed-fee quote.
This offer covers diagnosis and prioritization only. It does not include record remediation, schema transformation, feed rebuilding, or implementation support — those are available as follow-on services once you know exactly what needs fixing.
Business Value
What you walk away with
Stop losing records at the deposit gate
Crossref rejects deposits with missing or malformed DOIs, invalid contributor syntax, or unsupported character encoding. The audit identifies every record in your file that would be refused before you submit.
Recover discoverability you are already losing
Incomplete subject metadata, missing abstracts, and unstandardized contributor names all reduce how frequently your content surfaces in discovery layers — EBSCO, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and library link resolvers. The report shows exactly where your records fall short of the fields those systems prioritize.
Give leadership a clear decision
The audit replaces a vague sense that 'metadata quality is a problem' with a specific, costed picture of what is wrong and what a fix would take — making it easier to approve remediation work and defend the spend.
Natural Next Steps
What comes after the audit
The audit is designed to stand alone — you receive a complete, actionable report and can decide what to do with it. When teams do want to act on the findings, these are the services most commonly commissioned next.
Metadata Remediation Sprint
Hands-on cleanup of the issues identified in your audit. Scholyx normalizes records, fills missing fields, corrects identifiers, and delivers a clean, deposit-ready file. Fixed fee quoted against your specific issue log.
COUNTER Readiness Assessment
A parallel diagnostic for usage reporting. Covers your COUNTER R5.1 compliance posture, SUSHI endpoint availability, and the gaps between what your platform reports and what libraries expect to harvest.
Ongoing Metadata QA Retainer
Monthly or quarterly metadata review as part of a recurring engagement. Covers new content batches, schema changes, and feed anomalies before they reach downstream systems.
All follow-on work is fixed-fee and quoted separately. There is no retainer or subscription obligation.
Common Questions
Before you buy
My records are in a proprietary system — can you still audit them?
Yes. We work from standard exports: CSV, XML, spreadsheet, or equivalent flat files. We don't need direct system access. We'll guide you on exactly what to pull and how to export it.
We have more than 10,000 records — what then?
The fixed-fee audit covers a representative sample of up to 10,000 records. For larger portfolios, contact us to discuss a scoped engagement — we'll quote a fixed fee based on the actual volume and complexity.
We're not sure what format our metadata is in.
That's fine — submit what you have. Part of the audit is assessing format conformance. You don't need to clean anything up or convert files before sending them to us.
Do we need to give you platform or system access?
No. A file export is all we need. We never ask for login credentials, admin access, or any kind of system integration. You control what you send us.
What if we want fixes made, not just a report?
The report includes a prioritized remediation plan that tells you exactly what to fix and in what order. We also offer follow-on services — including a Metadata Remediation Sprint — if you want us to handle the cleanup. The audit is a no-commitment first step.
Ready to Start
Your audit report, delivered in 5 business days.
Purchase directly below. Once payment is confirmed, we will send a short intake form asking for your metadata file and downstream context — then begin immediately. Questions before you buy? Use the contact form and we will respond within one business day.