Metadata management involves managing

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

about other

data Data ( , ) are a collection of discrete or continuous values that convey information, describing the quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted for ...

, whereby this "other data" is generally referred to as content data. The term is used most often in relation to

digital media In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...

, but older forms of metadata are catalogs, dictionaries, and taxonomies. For example, the

Dewey Decimal Classification The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) (pronounced ) colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. ...

is a metadata management system developed in 1876 for libraries.

Metadata schema

Metadata management goes by the end-to-end process and governance framework for creating, controlling, enhancing, attributing, defining and managing a metadata schema, model or other structured aggregation system, either independently or within a repository and the associated supporting processes (often to enable the management of content). For web-based systems,

URL A uniform resource locator (URL), colloquially known as an address on the Web, is a reference to a resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identi ...

s, images, video etc. may be referenced from a triples table of object, attribute and value.

Scope

With specific knowledge domains, the boundaries of the metadata for each must be managed, since a general

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

is not useful to experts in one field whose language is knowledge-domain specific.

Metadata Manager

In the process of developing a

knowledge management Knowledge management (KM) is the set of procedures for producing, disseminating, utilizing, and overseeing an organization's knowledge and data. It alludes to a multidisciplinary strategy that maximizes knowledge utilization to accomplish organ ...

solution, creating a metadata schema, and a system in which metadata is managed, a dedicated resource may be appointed to maintain adherence to metadata standards as defined by data owners as well as general

best practice A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to alternatives because it tends to produce superior results. Best practices are used to achieve quality as an alternative to mandatory standards. Best practice ...

. This person is responsible for curation of the business and technical layers of the metadata schema, and commonly involved with strategy and implementation. A metadata manager is not required to master all aspects, or be involved with everything concerning the solution, but an understanding of as much of the process as possible to ensure a relevant schema is developed.

Metadata management over time

Managing the metadata in a knowledge management solution is an important step in a metadata strategy. It is part of the strategy to make sure that the metadata are complete, current and correct at any given time. Managing a metadata project is also about making sure that users of the system are aware of the possibilities allowed by a well-designed metadata system and how to maximize the benefits of metadata. Regularly monitoring the metadata to ensure that the schema remains relevant is advised.

Wikipedia metadata

Wikipedia is a project that actively manages metadata for its articles and files. For example, volunteer editors carefully curate new biographical articles based on the notability (''claim to fame''), name, birth, and/or death dates. Similarly, volunteer editors carefully curate new architectural articles based on name, municipality, or geo coordinates. When new articles with a valid alternate spelling are added to Wikipedia that match up to existing articles based on metadata, these are then manually checked and if needed, tagged for merging. When new articles are added that are considered out of scope or otherwise unfit for Wikipedia, these are nominated for deletion.See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion To help keep track of metadata on Wikipedia, the new Wikimedia project

Wikidata Wikidata is a collaboratively edited multilingual knowledge graph hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is a common source of open data that Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, and anyone else, are able to use under the CC0 public domain ...

was established in 2012. Click on the pictures to view more metadata about these images: File:Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia edited.jpg, This picture of the

Barcelona Cathedral The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia (), also known as Barcelona Cathedral, is the seat of the Archbishop of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain. The cathedral was constructed from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, with the principa ...

was uploaded to the English Wikipedia in 2003 to illustrate its Wikipedia article, and was transferred to

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons, or simply Commons, is a wiki-based Digital library, media repository of Open content, free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used ...

in 2007 so it could be used in other language versions of Wikipedia. File:Article catedral pantalla estreta.png, This screenprint of the Catalan Wikipedia page on the cathedral features several photos including this one. The screenprint was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in 2007 soon after the photo was available there, but that article on the Catalan Wikipedia has since been expanded.

References