A Brief Introduction to Metadata

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A Brief Introduction to Metadata
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A Brief Introduction to Metadata

• By Daniel Gelaw Lydia Alexander
  Victoria Kravchyna
• September 21, 1999

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Content

• Background Information.
• Towards Describing Electronic Information
  Resources
• Defining Metadata
• The need to use Metadata
• The Doublin Core Metadata Set (DC)
• Simple Example
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• Resource Description Framework (RDF)
• Conclusions

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Background Information

• Much of the information being created in the
  world today is in electronic format.
• The Internet and the World Wide Web have emerged
  as the major electronic publishing and
  information distribution infrastructure in the
  world today.
• The Internet contain millions of electronic
  information sources.

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Background Info. (Cont)

• In spite of the availability of various search
  engines, searching Internet to retrieve specific
  and relevant information can be a nightmare.
• This is compounded by the fact that most of the
  sources are not properly organized or do not have
  proper descriptions, as one would find in a
  library environment.

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Towards Describing Electronic Information
Resources

• One of the most important steps in the
  development of the Web beyond a chaotic
  repository of information, is our ability to
  bring some order to its contents.
• In Libraries various information resource
  descriptions and classification schemes
  likeAACR, DDC, LC, etc. are used to describe and
  index information sources.

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Towards Describing (Cont...)

• Similarly, to make the Internet easily accessible
  and searchable, there have been attempts to
  describe Internet Resources using different
  techniques.
• This brief presentation attempts to provide a
  general overview of the methods/formats being
  used and developed for electronic information
  resources description, data storage and data
  exchange.

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Metadata Basic Definition
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What is Metadata?

• Metadata is used to describe the forms and
  content of objects, documents or services.
• In its broadest sense, metadata is defined as
  data about data and the term is generally
  restricted to records describing electronic
  resources available on electronic networks.

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What is Meta(Cont...)

• Examples of metadata include the catalogue
  records used by libraries, museums and galleries
  the table of contents in a book and an index
  database.
• The prefix 'meta' means 'among', or 'together
  with'.
• Metadata may be a part of the resource itself,
  or be kept separately from it.

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Why do we use metadata?

• Imagine looking for a book at a library with no
  catalogue!
• As the diversity of materials on the web is much
  broader than we find in a traditional library, a
  comprehensive system of metadata needs to be
  developed to describe different media features in
  similar ways.
• The main reason for metadata is to improve the
  management and retrieval of information.

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Why do we use meta(Cont......)

• Good metadata can improve the efficiency of
• Search Engines,
• (The resources are properly indexed)
• Information Retrieval,
• (The users are able to search, filter and
  retrieve relevant information resources)
• Information Exchange and Management,
• (Producers are able to manage electronic
  information resources and exchange information
  about these resources).

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Why do we use meta(Cont...)

• The need to use metadata to facilitate access and
  exchange of electronic information has resulted
  in the development of various international and
  regional metadata standards.
• Some formats of metadata have also been developed
  specifically for use in certain fields of study
  or type of information sources like
• MARC formats (Libraries)
• The Medical Record Metadata,
• The FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial
  Matadata (Cartographic Community), and many more.
• However, the Dublin Core Metadata Element set
  (DC) has slowly become internationally accepted.

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The Dublin Core Metadata (DC)
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The Dublin Core Metadata (DC)

• The DC Metadata Element set is a core list of 15
  Metadata elements agreed at the Dublin Core
  Metadata Workshop series organized by the Online
  Computer Library Center (OCLC) and the National
  Center for Super Computer Application (NCSA)
  between 19995 and 1997.
• The DC matadata types include the following 15
  elements used to describe a document

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Dublin Metadata Core Element Set

• 1. Title
• 2. Author or Creator
• 3. Subject and Keywords
• 4. Description
• 5. Publisher
• 6. Other Contributor
• 7. Date
• 8. Resource Type

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Dublin Metadata(Cont.....)

• 9. Format
• 10. Resource Identifier
• 11. Source
• 12. Language
• 13. Relation
• 14. Coverage
• 15. Rights Management

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Example Using the Dublin Core to describe a
Web-based resource

• ltHTMLgt
• ltHEADgt
• ltTITLEgt A Brief Introduction to Metadata
  lt/TITLEgt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Title CONTENTA Brief
  Introduction to Metadatagt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Creators CONTENTDaniel Gelaw,
  Lydia Alexander, Victoria Kravchynagt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Creators.Address
  CONTENTdanielgelaw_at_hotmail.com,
  lla0004_at_unt.edu, vcravchina_at_hotmail.comgt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Subject CONTENTResource
  Description, gt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Subject CONTENTMetadata, gt

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Example using the DC (Cont...... )

• ltMETA NAMEDC.Subject CONTENTInformation
  Retrieval, gt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.SubjectSCHEMEDDC
  CONTENT005.1gt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Description CONTENTThe paper
  was written for Digital Imaging class
  presentation at the University of North Texas
  (UNT), School of Library and Information Sciences
  (SLIS). It provides a brief overview on metadata
  standards or formats developed for electronic
  information resources description to make the
  Internet Internet easily accessible and
  searchable. The paper also raises issues on
  digital image description and concludes that all
  stakeholders should do everything possible to
  ensure universal access. gt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Publisher CONTENTUNT, SLISgt

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Example using the DC (Cont...... )

• ltMETA NAMEDC.Date SCHEMEISO8601
  CONTENT1999-09-21gt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Type CONTENTText.Homepage.SLIS(W
  ebct)gt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Format SCHEMEIMT
  CONTENTtext/PowerPointgt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Identifier CONTENThttp//webct.c
  ourses.unt.edu/SCRIPT/SLIS5960SH/scripts/student/s
  erve_home...gt
• ltMETA NAMEDC.Language SCHEMEISO639-1
  CONTENTengt
• lt/HEADgt
• ltBODYgt
• lt! The content of the entire document will be
  placed here--gt
• lt/BODYgt
• lt/HTMLgt

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Example Using DC (Cont....)

• In the above example, it will be easy for
  meta-based search engines to index the document
  using the meta tags used and therefore make it
  possible for Internet users to search for the
  document using any of the meta tags as keywords.
• Please note that a number of metadata generators
  are also freely available on the Internet (Such
  ashttp//www.lub.lu.se/cgi-bin/nmdc.pl) and
  these can be used to generate the appropriate
  metadata that can be posted in the HTML document.

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Extensible Markup Language (XML)
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Extensible Markup Language (XML)

• XML is a new Web publishing standard, meta-markup
  language, announced by the world wide web
  consortium on 10th February 1998.
• XML is a simplified subset of SGML (Standard
  Generalized Markup language) designed for Web
  application.
• It is flexible and has great potential in
  describing electronic sources and data management.

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Application of XML

• XML could be used for
• describing metadata information of other
  documents
• customizing and enriching documents description
• publishing and exchanging database contents
• communication between application programs, etc.
• XML is gaining popularity among Web designers and
  Internet Content Providers at a very fast pace.
  Even though it is still in its developmental
  stage, it is being seen as the web developers
  tool of the future.

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Resource Description Framework (RDF)
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Resource Description Framework (RDF)

• The RDF is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)s
  effort to provide the information community with
  a standard system for describing any object with
  a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) as its
  address.
• The foundation of RDF is a model for representing
  named property and property values.
• The RDF Model and Syntax Specification W3C
  recommendation document was announced on
  22nd February, 1999 and can be accessed at
  http//www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/.

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RDF (Cont...)

• RDF metadata can be used-
• Cataloguing
• for describing the content and relationships
  available at a particular website, page or
  digital library
• Resource discovery
• to provide better search engine capabilities
• Intelligent Software agents
• to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange
• Content rating
• for describing intellectual property rights of
  web pages and many others.

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Conclusions

• With the development of Digital information
  resources on the web, there is an urgent need to
  ensure that information being provided on such
  sites is easily accessible to the Internet
  community.
• This is where the use of METADATA would help a
  great deal!
• The application of Metadata set will ensure that
  web resource developers have a standard to follow
  and will allow for compatibility
  interoperability of the information resources
  being created!

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Conclusions(Cont.....)

• Once the web has sufficiently populated with
  rich metadata, the vast unstructured mass of
  information may be in the future be transformed
  into something more manageable- and thus the idea
  of universal access to all kind of
  information-no matter where they reside- would
  appear to be at our fingertips!
• As indicated by various researchers, Metadata,
  (particularly for the digital image), is still in
  its infancy and will surely continue to evolve.
  As we are a stakeholders in the issue, a lot is
  expected from us!

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THANK YOU!