This project will develop new tools that will work with common statistical packages to automate the capture of metadata at the granularity of individual data transformations. Software-independent data transformation descriptions will be added to metadata in two internationally accepted standards, the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) and Ecological Metadata Language (EML). These tools will create efficiencies and reduce the costs of data collection, preparation, and re-use. Our project targets research communities with strong metadata standards and heavy reliance on statistical analysis software (social and behavioral sciences and earth observation sciences), but it is generalizable to other domains, such as biomedical research.