Use Of Metadata Research Articles

The open research system: a web-based metadata and data repository for collaborative research

Beginning in 1999, a web-based metadata and data repository we call the “open research system” (ORS) was designed and built to assist geographically distributed scientific research teams. The purpose of this innovation was to promote the open sharing of data within and across organizational lines and across geographic distances. As the use of the system continued, end users and group administrators requested the development of a second, Intranet-based system with similar functionality. After three years of operation, a survey was conducted of users of the system to understand why some users and research groups appeared to utilize the two systems more than others. From this research we found that some barriers to use include: (1) mismatch of system functionality to user or group needs; (2) willingness to share with an internal group by Intranet but not with the world by Internet; and (3) resistance to entering metadata because of workplace habits. This experience has also taught us that with respect to web-based metadata and data repositories there is a difference between long-term and short-term research projects in their need to establish good metadata and data storage procedures. Moreover, some time is required for researchers to change from short-term to long-term project thinking. It is also important for organizations or managers of such research groups to reflect on established incentives and penalties that either encourage or discourage appropriate use of metadata in filing procedures. We conclude with a discussion of possible improvements that will be made to the system in the coming years, with an emphasis on the emerging phenomenon of “open content” (OC) collaboration that is being modeled after Internet-based collaboration in “open source” (OS) programming. This development will require online systems like ORS, and the OS/OC approach has the potential to evolve into no less than a new paradigm for how cross-organizational (in fact, global) scientific research collaborations are undertaken in the future.

Information ethics in the design and use of metadata

Just as information contains the explicit and implicit values of its creators, so does the metadata that describes, summarizes, or represents that information. Consequently, issues arise in the planned design of metadata; in the creation of surrogates that represent data, text, or objects; as well as in the use and ownership of the metadata content in electronic environments. The intent here is to be illustrative, rather than prescriptive, when discussing issues raised.

Web Characterization Project

Discovery and description of Web resources are currently facilitated by the use of metadata. Although much work has been conducted in developing metadata architectures and standards, few studies have undertaken to assess current metadata usage in Web documents. An analysis of this kind is challenging in view of the difficulty of data collection. A practical approach is to collect a representative sample of Web documents, from which valid inferences can be made concerning the Web as a whole. The Web Characterization Project has developed a methodology for extracting a valid sample from the Web. Using data from a sample collected in June 1998, this paper characterizes the use of metadata in Web documents.

Guest Editorial on Metadata

This is a special issue on the topic of metadata. An often-cited de®nition of metadata is `data about data'. In most cases, this means data that describe documents, for example, the author of a document, the date that a photograph was taken, or the Universal Resource Locator (URL) of a Web site. The World-Wide Web Consortium de®nes metadata as `machine understandable information for the Web' . This de®nition emphasizes that, in order to be useful in a technological context, metadata ought to be provided in a form that can be processed by machines. Examples of such formats are HTML META-tags, XML records, etc. In the context of this special issue, metadata is understood as a description of a learning object in a very general sense. A learning object is de®ned as ` any entity, digital or non-digital, that may be used for learning, education or training. [. . .] A metadata instance for a learning object describes relevant characteristics of the learning object to which it applies. Such characteristics can be regrouped in general, educational, technical and classi®cation categories.'' (LOM, 2000). As illustrated by the papers in this special issue, the main use of metadata in the context of learning environments is for identifying and accessing educational content. This is extremely important, as it enables the reuse of such content, a condition sine qua non if widespread deployment of educational technologies is to become a reality. Some of the most relevant research and development in this area is taking place in the ®elds of information retrieval and digital libraries (CACM, 2001).

Reusability and adaptability of interactive resources in Web-based educational systems

The production of interactive multimedia content is in most cases an expensive task in terms of time and cost. Hence, optimizing production by exploiting the reusability of interactive multimedia elements is mandatory. Reusability can be triggered by a combination of resuable multimedia components and the appropriate use of metadata to control the components as well as their combination. In this article, we discuss the reusability aspects of interactive multimedia content in web-based learning systems. In contrast to existing approaches, we extend a component-based architecture to build interactive multimedia visualization units with the use of metadata for reusability and customizability. In the three-tier model, the lowest layer of the paradigm corresponds to the programmer (code reusability). The user interface of an educational visualization is located at the top layer where the interaction with the end-user (student) takes place. The educator is located between the top and the bottom layers. This medium layer allows adapting interactive multimedia content according to the needs of the user, applying a predefined set of metadata. The teacher can both adjust the level of explanation and the level of interactivity of an animation, and influence the presentation and the results of the algorithms being illustrated (program reusability). After a theoretical overview, we explain our architecture by giving an example of an application.

The SMPTE Data Coding Protocol and Dictionaries

This report is a review of the work of the SMPTE to standardize the use of metadata in broadcast and related industries. It will explain key aspects about the SMPTE metadata work including the use of the Key-Length-Value (K-L-V) data coding protocol and the metadata dictionary. Much of the SMPTE work is coordinated with other ongoing metadata work in such fora as the EBU, IFTA and MPEG-7 as all sections of the content production industry recognize that coordination of metadata activities is vital for its future cooperative development.

Metadata usage in the statistical production process

Based on the analysis of the statistical production process inside and outside national statistical offices requirements for metadata structures accompanying statistical data are outlined. Furthermore a transformation model is sketched which allows the use of metadata in production activities and some conceptual issues for the architecture of metadata driven statistical processing systems are discussed.

Who Will Create Metadata for the Internet?

After metadata schemes are established for the Internet, the next major obstacle will be to persuade information creators to use these schemes. To date, no mechanism has been effective in promoting the use of metadata for the Internet. This article examines the reasons why major categories of information providers may not see metadata as a worthwhile investment. Once these reasons are explained, the authors offer an alternative solution to create a "metadata explosion."

Capturing Records' Metadata: Unresolved Questions and Proposals for Research

The author reviews a range of the research questions still unanswered by research on the capture of metadata required for recordness. These include how to maintain inviolable linkages between records and their metadata in a variety of architectures, what structure metadata content should take, the semantics of records metadata and that of other electronic sources, how new metadata can be acquired by records over time, maintaining the meaning of contextual metadata over time, the use of metadata in records management and the design of environments in which Business Acceptable Communications – BAC – (those with appropriate evidential metadata) can persist.

Tecnologías para el manejo de metadatos en artículos científicos

El uso de tecnologías de la Web Semántica ha venido acrecentándose, por lo que es común usarlo en diferentes aspectos. Este trabajo evalúa como estas tecnologías pueden contribuir a mejorar la indexación de artículos en revistas científicas. Inicialmente, se hace una revisión conceptual de los metadatos, para posteriormente estudiar las tecnologías más importantes para el uso de metadatos en la Web y, de esta manera, escoger una para aplicarla en el caso de estudio de indexación de artículos científicos, determinando los metadatos con bases en los usados por las revistas de investigación de impacto y construir un modelo para la indexación de artículos científicos usando una tecnología de Web Semántica.