Metadata Principles and Practicalities
Stuart Sutton2002, D-Lib Magazine
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Abstract
The authors hope to make explicit the strong foundations of agreement shared by two prominent metadata Initiatives: the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) and the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Learning Object Metadata (LOM) Working Group. This agreement emerged from a joint metadata taskforce meeting in Ottawa in August, 2001. By elucidating shared principles and practicalities of metadata, we hope to raise the level of understanding among our respective (and shared) constituents, so that all stakeholders can move forward more decisively to address their respective problems. The ideas in this paper are divided into two categories. are those concepts judged to be common to all domains of metadata and which might inform the design of any metadata schema or application. are the rules of thumb, constraints, and infrastructure issues that emerge from bringing theory into practice in the form of useful and sustainable systems. Principles Practicalities II. Principles The paragraphs in the Principles section set out general truths the authors believe provide a guiding framework for the development of practical solutions for semantic and machine interoperability in any domain using any set of metadata standards. A. Modularity Metadata modularity is a key organizing principle for environments characterized by vastly diverse sources of content,
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