I use metadata in every page but actually I really don't know what it is.
That is why, I would like to ask here that what is a metadata and what type of information is stored in it?
Metadata is basically information about a data. Example of metadata is all around us especially in our digital connected world. Imagine a piece of data as customer ID. Technical metadata around this customer id can be like what table that the customer id resides in or what kind of data type it is. Metadata is structured data which describes the characteristics of a resource.
It can give us information about a data like the purpose of data, time and date and location when it was created etc. Web pages contain metadata in the form of Meta tags.
Metadata is the key words and phrases that help search engines find it. Using this metadata search engines find the page. Webpage creators generally add the metadata as part of creating the page or create metadata directly in a database and linking it to the resource. It is the main link between information creator and information user.
Example of Metatag in HTML can be:
<HEAD>
<TITLE> Art work</TITLE>
<META name = "description “content= “Coin collection.">
<META name="keywords “content="coin, coin collection Price, coins for sale">
</HEAD>
We have different types of metadata like Structural metadata, Technical metadata, Descriptive metadata, Administrative metadata etc.
Structural metadata describes the logical and the physical structure of a digital resource. As described earlier Technical metadata focuses on how an object was created, its format, its characteristics, How it is stored.
Descriptive metadata is what the users actually see. It can include elements such as title, abstract, author.
In short Metadata is a data about a data or to say more/detailed information about a data. Metadata is structured information that describes, locates or at least makes it easier to find, use and manage an information resource.
Hello Randy,
To ensure proper use of data by you or your colleague or the other researcher in the future, they must be documented.
Properly data documentation means Meta data.
This enables you to understand your data in details and it will be easy to find by other researcher.
This is the basic definition of meta data.
Thank you.
A metadata is a data that describes or explains other data. In metadata, “meta” is a prefix that means “an underlying definition or description” in most information technology usage. Metadata summarizes or sums up basic information about data which makes it easier to find and work with specific instances of data. Examples of very basic document metadata are author, date created and date modified, and file size.
Being able to filter through that metadata makes it easier for someone to find a particular document. In addition to document files, metadata is also used for images, videos, web pages, and spreadsheets. In web pages, the use of metadata is very important because it contains descriptions of the contents as well as keywords linked to that content.
In web pages, metadata is normally expressed in the form of meta tags.
