The Metadata Problem IMT 589 January 14, 2006

1/14/2006IMT589- Applied and Structural Metadata2 Metacrap People lie People are lazy People are stupid Mission: Impossible- know thyself Schemas aren’t neutral Metrics influence results There’s more than one way to describe something

1/14/2006IMT589- Applied and Structural Metadata3 What does History Tell Us? Complexity is a fact of life The bigger the scope, the more complex Where there are barriers to using existing resources, reinvention occurs It’s easy to copy something without maintaining a connection Results in duplication, loss of source Tracking origin of information gets harder the older it gets Tools don’t solve problems, people do

1/14/2006IMT589- Applied and Structural Metadata4 Is Anything Different Today? The web? Location is defined, for the moment Metadata part of the content? Makes local color easier to produce Structured markup languages? Require definition of structure Need to agree on names and labels Object-Oriented modeling? Still need to define your classes and relationships Scale is still an issue

1/14/2006IMT589- Applied and Structural Metadata5 What’s the Point? For properly scoped projects, metadata can be the difference between success and failure Some headway toward enterprise integration can be made with effort The web makes things more visible, and provides business incentives There’s expense in poor access- loss of customers, lack of business knowledge Without trying, nothing gets better Each failure brings new learning

1/14/2006IMT589- Applied and Structural Metadata6 So? Learn from past experience Set your scope Set expectations Don’t rely on others to do what you can’t do yourself Metadata won’t solve all your problems But if you define the problem, it can help It’s a step toward more effective use of data and information in the future It’s an investment, so use it wisely