You have heard of metadata, but do you know what it is or why is it so important? This interesting information came to us from Dataconomy in their article, “What is Metadata and Why is it as Important as the Data Itself?”

Metadata is explained in a few different ways. Some say it is data that provides information about other data. Others refer to it as summarizing basic information about data. The common denominator is that metadata is important.

Metadata is a shorthand representation of the data to which it refers. Metadata schemas can be simple or complex, but they all have some things in common.

When someone refers to data quality and data discoverability, metadata is involved and often along with ontologies.

Ontologies are descriptions and definitions of relationships. Ontologies can include classes, properties, relationships, functions, etc., and ultimately they help us to understand the relationship between things, or in this case, among metadata.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.