This document provides an overview of metadata, including: 1) Definitions of metadata from various sources, describing it as data that describes other data or information resources. 2) The main types of metadata - descriptive, processing, administrative, and semantic. Descriptive metadata retrieves information, processing metadata processes information, and administrative metadata manages information. 3) How metadata can be created automatically by tools or manually by people. Metadata schemes provide a formal structure to identify a discipline's knowledge and link it to information resources.

1. Fourth Floor
Introduction
to Metadata
4

2. Structure
• History of metadata
• Definitions of metadata
• Types of metadata
• How are metadata created?
• Metadata Schemes
• Metadata Lifecycle
• Metadata Dimensions
• Metadata – Learning Object relationships

3. History

4. 100+ 1 Definitions
• Data of objects which describes information
resources or data (Morville & Rosenfeld)
• Describe a discipline that fosters the study of
data about data (Sen)
• A record that consists of structured
information about a resource (Al-Khalifa & Davis)

5. 100+ 1 Definitions
• Any data which conveys knowledge about an
item without requiring examination of the
item itself (Haase)
• Structured descriptors of information
resources, designed to promote information
retrieval (Smiraglia)

6. 100+ 1 Definitions
• Structured information about an information
resource of any media type or format(Caplan)
• The term metadata is used differently in different
communities. Some use it to refer to machine
understandable information, while others use it
only for records that describe electronic
resources.
– In the library environment, metadata is commonly
used for any formal scheme of resource description,
applying to any type of object, digital or non-digital
(NISO)

7. 100+ 1 Definitions
• Structured descriptions, stored as computer
data, that attempt to describe the essential
properties of other discrete computer data
objects (Gill)

8. Why bother?
• Metadata is recognized as a critically
important, and yet increasingly problematic
and complex concept with relevance for
information objects as they move through
time and space, (Gilliland-Swetland, 2004)

9. Broad Types of Metadata
• Descriptive -Retrieve information
– Book title and author name are descriptive
metadata. In Windows Explorer- file name,
creation date, last modification date, and more. In
Microsoft Word the title, subject, author are such
examples

10. Broad Types of Metadata
• Processing - Process information
– Framemaker's conditional tags are processing
metadata because they let authors manipulate the
content. The same is true for conditional tags in
HATs (Help Authoring Tools)

11. Broad Types of Metadata
• Administrative -Manage information
– This varies widely, but examples are author name,
creation date, last modification date, and
"owner".

12. Broad Types of Metadata
• Semantic metadata can be defined as
– “linking related terms to one another” (Haase, 2004)
– “the process of attaching semantic descriptions to
Web resources by linking them to a number of
classes and properties defined in Ontologies”
(Scerri et al., 2005)

13. Specific Types of Metadata
• Administrative
– Metadata used in managing & administering
collections & information resources
• Descriptive
– Metadata used to identify & describe collections &
information resources
• Preservation
– Metadata related to the preservation management of
collections & information resources

14. Specific Types of Metadata
• Technical
– Metadata related to how a system functions or
metadata behaves
• Use
– Metadata related to the level and type of use of
collections and information resources

16. Towards Semantic Metadata

17. Distinctions
Source of
metadata
Internal
External
Method of
creation
Automatic
Manual
Nature of
Metadata
Expert
NonExpert
Status of
Metadata
Static
Dynamic
Short-term
Long-term
Structure of
Metadata
Structured
Unstructured
Semantics of
Metadata
Controlled
Uncontrolled
Type of
Metadata
Collection-level
Item-level

18. Creation of Metadata
• Automated
– By commercial search engines
– Automatic indexing tools
• Manual (Human)
– Professional metadata creators
– Technical metadata creators
– Content creators
– Community/subject enthusiasts

19. Metadata “in order”
• A Metadata Scheme provides a formal
structure designed to identify the knowledge
structure of a given discipline and to link that
structure to the information of the discipline
through the creation of an information system
that will assist the identification, discovery,
and use of information within that discipline

21. Metadata Lifecycle

22. Metadata record & Learning
Object relationships

23. One to one?
• This might be true for descriptive metadata
• But what about having social metadata or
contextual metadata in place?
Digital
Learning
object
Metadata
…is attached to one record of…

24. One to many?
Digital
Learning
object
Metadata
…can have multiple records of…
• For different contexts of learning
• From different users (e.g. social metadata)
Metadata

25. Many to many?
• Different versions (other resolution) that have
same metadata for the biggest part
• Same resources enriched in other repositories
A1
Metadata
Metadata
A1
v1.2
Copy of
A1

26. Fourth Floor
Policies & Copyrights
for e-Learning
Next stop:
5th Floor – Metadata
Specifications & Standards
4