At 10:17 2005-05-26, Lassi Nirhamo wrote:
>Working Group 4 (WG4) from ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 is currently defining (trying
>to ;-) term metadata in its Metadata for Learning Resources (MLR) work.
>Finland has suggested the definition: "Information associated to an
>object". There is always purpose for metadata, so data becomes information.
>Really interested what do you think about that?
Usefulness, in a definition, surely is something to do with helping in the
discrimination between different things. If there is no way of deciding
whether something is included or excluded by a definition, then what would
be the point of the definition? It wouldn't "define" (though it could be
something else, like poetry.)
So I would question: what is *excluded* by this definition? To be honest, I
can't see anything meaningful being excluded. If an object is absolutely
anything, then surely any information of any interest whatever could be
counted as "metadata" by that definition, in some way. If that is the case,
then calling a piece of information "metadata" adds precisely zero
knowledge to me over calling it just plain information. What's wrong with
the word "attribute"? The concept of an attribute implies an object of
which it is an attribute. And at least the term "attribute" is well known
in that context, at least more so than "metadata".
And then how about the current associations of "meta-"? OK, I know that
metaphysics is not physics about physics. But apart from that, "meta-" as a
prefix has come to mean, in Tim Berners-Lee's words (
http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Glossary.html ) "something applied to
itself: meta-meeting is a meeting about meetings etc." Hence, metadata
would mean data (or perhaps rather information) about data (or indeed
information), not information about real objects. This both makes sense of
many customary uses of the term "metadata" and also provides sensible
boundaries, so that metadata is not just any information at all. Even
covers that metashirt Sarah told us about...
Maybe it would be worth taking back to SC36 the idea that "metadata" might
not be the best term to be using in the first place. Using a different term
might make definitions easier.
Simon
--
Simon Grant, of North-West England http://www.simongrant.org/home.html
Information Systems Strategist http://www.inst.co.uk/
Please continue to use my established e-mail address
a (just by itself) (at) simongrant.org
|