Hi folks
The thread on "Do they mean metadata?!" reminds me of an active concern
about terminology which I hope people on this list can help with (if not
us, who?)
Googling ' define:metadata ' gives a motley selection of definitions.
Reasonably representative of many definitions is "Data about data. For
example, the title, subject, author, and size of a file constitute metadata
about the file." - from
<http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=X&start=13&oi=define&q=http://www.oneil.com/cfm/glossary.cfm>www.oneil.com/cfm/glossary.cfm
But there is clearly a lot of confusion. I love this one: "Text in your
document that is not important for understanding the subject, but that
should be there anyway, such as version information, co-authors, credits to
people etc." - from
<http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=X&start=10&oi=define&q=http://www.tldp.org/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/html/glossary.html>www.tldp.org/LDP/LDP-Author-Guide/html/glossary.html
Interestingly, W3C seems to have moved on from using the term. Because of
the potential for confusion?
Does the SIG have a canonical definition of metadata which is adequate to
deciding whether or not something counts as metadata or not? The previous
thread hints that we might not have.
If not, where are we? I start with the assumption (obviously, please
correct if mistaken) that we take things like a book, a "learning object",
or a digital object of any kind as "data" for these purposes, and relative
to that data, the metadata is the information which is "about" that object,
seen as data.
Now on to the real thorny bit, and the crux of my question. Say we are
describing an achievement of someone. There are various (to me) distinct
categories of information which could be called metadata.
1. The description of the achievement.
2. The date of the achievement, and other information about the achievement.
3. Other people's assessment or views of the achievement.
4. The relationships between that achievement and other things.
5. Authorship, creation and revision date, and rights over the actual
records in 1 to 4.
Or has someone else set out these kind of categories of information better
than I have here?
Now I guess everyone would agree that 5 counts as metadata if anything
does. The question is, do people think of 1-4 as metadata as well?
If so, could there be a different term to distinguish 5 from the rest? Or
do people feel there is not a clear enough distinction to use different terms?
If we are not clear what we are talking about, that would add extra spice
to Lorna's original suggestion that this SIG be called the "CETIS Tagging
SIG" ;)
Regards
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
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