Metadata Retooled

Government Computer News is touting 2006 as the year for metadata  within government IT. They see collaboration and data interchange as two forces driving the demand.

It’s not that metadata is something that’s new.  The concept of assigning data to describe other data has been around for a long time.  But we’re in the middle of a revolution now that has been jump-started by the wide-spread acceptance of data-exchange based on XML.  XML is a neutral format that flows well between applications. Web Services enabled by standards like XML and SOAP allow easy interchange of data and associated metadata between heterogeneous systems.  And new architectures using Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) have developed to help create the data-flow blueprints for enterprises.

But not only has data and metadata become easier to transport, search and share, it’s also become easier create, and because of that it has become a powerful force in collaboration.  Examples are on-line blogging and collaboration services like Technorati, Del.icio.us and Flickr. The rise of these services have transformed structured metadata assignment to something very free-form that’s called ‘tagging‘. Tags usually represent lists of a set of categories or keywords.

In Formtek | Orion Access 5, we’ve augmented our structured metadata classes with the ability to make unstructured keyword assignments.  Search just becomes that more relevant and flexible.

But it’s interesting to note that there’s always a clear need for good metadata management.  For example, Gartner brings up problems with allowing many users wide-open access to the creation of metadata.  The Gartner example is based on Microsoft’s metadata tagging capability to be built into the upcoming Vista operating system. With no one vetting the content of the tags being created, a company could get in trouble or be embarrassed by files being released that may not have been cleansed of attached metadata tags.

Something similar happened here. Last week we received a Word document attached in an email from a customer. When we looked at the file, one sentence stood out since it was highlighted in yellow. When moving the mouse over it, a comment popped up.  While certainly not offensive, the comment was probably not intended for us to see.  Most likely, the comment was created by someone who reviewed the file for the sender, but before sending, the comment never got removed.

Metadata tagging is clearly the trend.  And it isn’t limited to on-line social web sites.
But it needs to be channeled and managed well.