What is metadata?

What is Metadata?

Introduction to Metadata

What is metadata?
The term Metadata is defined as " data about data". It describes the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics about data written in a standard FGDC format. Metadata helps a person to locate and understand data.
Metadata provides data history. It describes the Who, What, Where, Why and How of the data.

-Who created and maintains the data?
-What is the content and structure of the data?
-When was the data collected? Published?
-Where is the geographic location? Storage location?
-Why were the data created?
-How were the data produced? Processed? Raw or modeled data?
Find information describing:
Data Currency
Data Utility
Data Processing Steps
Status and Development of Projects
Estimated Development Costs
Source File Availability
Research Benefits: compare, verify and query data
Metadata may sound like a new concept, but it is created everyday for many reasons. In a real world setting metadata exists as food labels, map legends, recipes, library records, information on a CD or DVD, grant proposals, gps data dictionaries, project reports, 'how-to' guides, and the like. Each of these types of metadata have a consistent format. As of Fall 2004 the standardized format for geospatial metadata is the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM) provided by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC).

Why have a Standard?

There is a significant amount of data developed by the geospatial community, and these data often can serve many applications. The inability to identify what data exist, the quality of data, and how to access and use the data results in duplication of effort and hinders data sharing and integration. In 1995 the FGDC developed the CSDGM under the executive order 12906 and endorsed (the current) Version II of the CSDGM in 1998.
This standard addressed the need for a common language to facilitate communication among peers by providing a common set of terminology and definitions, and information about mandatory information and allowable values. These mandatory variables provide for data discovery through numerous geodata clearinghouses, catalogs and other resources; provides information for the end user to evaluate shared data and successfully integrate it with other datasets and minimize data integration time and associated costs.
source;http://www.mpcer.nau.edu/metadata/WhatIsMetadata.htm

Print Page