Sunday, April 5, 2009

Metadata

Metadata is "data about other data". It describes, explains, locates, make it easier to retrieve, use and manage an information resource. The purpose of the metadata is used to facilitate the understanding, characteristics, and management usage of data. The metadata required for effective data management that varies with different type of data and context. It makes sure that resources will survive and continue to accessiable into the future. (pg.1,NISO)

An item of metadata can describe an individual item or collection of data such as multiple content items and hierarchical levels. "In data processing, metadata is definitional data that provides information about or documentation of other data managed within an application or environment. For example, metadata would document data about data elements or attributes, (name, size, data type, etc) and data about records or data structures (length, fields, columns, etc) and data about data (where it is located, how it is associated, ownership, etc.). Metadata may include descriptive information about the context, quality and condition, or characteristics of the data. It may be recorded with high or low granularity. " (wikipedia.org)


Few Examples of Metadata

A book is one of the example of metadata. The title of the book, author, subject, identifier, number of pages, text and date of publication are metadata.
Photograph is another example of metadata. The date, time and other details that appear on a photo or camera settings are metadata.
References:
wikipedia.org and Understanding Metadata, Published by NISO
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