Metadata how does it work

Organize your information and documents into enterprise knowledge graphs and make your data management and analytics work in synergy.

Metadata represents data about data. Metadata enriches the data with information that makes it easier to find, use and manage. For instance, HTML tags define layout for human readers.

Semantic metadata helps computers to interpret data by adding references to concepts in a knowledge graph. Metadata enriches the data with information, which makes it easier to discover, use and manage.

There is a wide variety of metadata depending on its purpose, format, quality and volume. Some of the widely used categories of metadata are: descriptive, structural, administrative and statistical. One example of metadata is everything written on a letter envelope to help the actual content — the letter — get delivered to its recipient. As another example, HTML tags instruct web browsers how to layout the pages to make it easier for humans to read them and follow references to other pages.

Semantic metadata helps computers to interpret the meaning of the data via references to concepts, formally described in a knowledge graph. Semantic metadata is often part of knowledge graphs itself. Describing physical and digital objects is what metadata is about. It helps the classification, access and storage of digital assets of all kinds.

It is with metadata that the encoding of knowledge within any data element is possible. Metadata comes in many shapes and flavors, carrying additional information about where a resource was produced, by whom, when was the last time it was accessed, what is it about and many more details around it. Metadata in the world of database management might address the size and formatting or other characteristics of a data item.

It's essential to interpreting the contents of database data. For example, if you have a set of data with dates and names spread all about, you can't know what the data is representing or what the columns and rows are describing.

With basic metadata like column names, you can quickly glance at the database and understand what a particular set of data is describing. If there's a list of names without metadata to describe them, they could be anything, but when you add metadata to the top that says "Employee's Let Go," you now know that those names represent all of the employees who have been fired.

The date beside them can also be understood as something useful like "Termination Date" or "Hire Date. Metadata is data that describes data, but it isn't the data itself. The author and creation date metadata stored in a Microsoft Word document, for example, is not the entirety of the document but instead just a few details about the file.

Since metadata is not the actual data, it can usually safely be made public because it doesn't give anyone access to the raw data. Knowing summary details about a web page or video file, for example, is enough to understand what the file is but not enough to actually see the whole page or play the whole video. Think of metadata as a card file in your childhood library that contains information about a book; metadata isn't the book itself.

You can learn a lot about a book by examining its card file, but you have to open the book to read it. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.

Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.

Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Mike Chapple. Mike Chapple is an IT professional with more than 10 years' experience cybersecurity and extensive knowledge of SQL and database management. Information needs context, and we need to provide that context in a way that doesn't burden users but instead supports them.

This means we need to take full advantage of recognition and analytics technologies to streamline and automate how we develop that context. One such tool is Metadata.

Metadata offers significant benefits in terms of understanding information in new ways and in being able to leverage that intelligence to drive innovation and the customer experience. There is no one definition of "Metadata" that is international and universally agreed upon — rather, there are many similar definitions or descriptions which mostly cover the same points.

You should adopt the one most suitable and relevant to the context of your information management activities and the organization in which you work. Notice the similarities and differences in these definitions and think about how they relate to the context of your own work. Metadata is often called data about data or information about information.