With the move towards open research information, the DOI registration agency DataCite is increasingly used as a source for metadata describing research data, for example to perform scientometric analyses. However, there is a lack of research on how DataCite metadata describing research data are created and maintained. This paper adresses this gap by using DataCite metadata provenance information to analyze the overall prevalence and patterns of change to DataCite metadata records. Metadata change was observed for 12.18 % of metadata records in the sample, and change tends to be incremental and not extensive. DataCite metadata records offer reliable descriptions of datasets and are stable enough to be used in scientometric research. The rate of change differs from previous studies of metadata change in other contexts, suggesting that there are differences in metadata practices between research data repositories and more traditional cataloging environments. The observed changes do not seem to fully align with idealized conceptualizations of metadata creation and maintenance for research data. In particular, the data does not show that metadata records are maintained routinely and continuously. Metadata change also has a limited effect on metadata completeness.

翻译：随着开放研究信息的推进，DOI注册机构DataCite日益成为描述研究数据的元数据来源，例如用于进行科学计量分析。然而，关于DataCite如何创建和维护描述研究数据的元数据，目前缺乏相关研究。本文通过利用DataCite元数据溯源信息，分析了DataCite元数据记录的整体变更普遍性和模式，填补了这一空白。在样本中，12.18%的元数据记录观察到变更，且变更往往是增量式的而非广泛性的。DataCite元数据记录提供了数据集的可靠描述，其稳定性足以用于科学计量研究。变更率与先前其他背景下的元数据变更研究不同，表明研究数据存储库与更传统的编目环境在元数据实践上存在差异。观察到的变更似乎并未完全符合研究数据元数据创建和维护的理想化概念框架。特别是，数据未显示元数据记录被常规且持续地维护。元数据变更对元数据完整性的影响也较为有限。