“On the Communication of Scientific Results: The Full-Metadata Format”
Moritz Riede, Rico Schueppel, Kristian O. Sylvester-Hvid, et al. have self-archived "On the Communication of Scientific Results: The Full-Metadata Format" in arXiv.
Here's an excerpt:
In this paper, we introduce a scientific format for text-based data files, which facilitates storing and communicating tabular data sets. The so-called Full-Metadata Format builds on the widely used INI-standard and is based on four principles: readable self-documentation, flexible structure, fail-safe compatibility, and searchability. As a consequence, all metadata required to interpret the tabular data are stored in the same file, allowing for the automated generation of publication-ready tables and graphs and the semantic searchability of data file collections. The Full-Metadata Format is introduced on the basis of three comprehensive examples. The complete format and syntax is given in the appendix.
