The Importance of Metadata Creation
and Support
These conditions make it necessary to
establish a support system that reaches out to the academic
geo-spatial community. The support system must use a
range of strategies that make dataset creators and holders
and users aware of the importance of dataset documentation.
First, these audiences must be introduced to metadata
and the case made to motivate data collectors or holders
to create dataset documentation for existing data holdings
and new ones. Next, they need to be made aware of metadata
standards and guidelines, and the process of creating
and the mechanisms by which they can publish their metadata.
Third, they need a mechanism by which these metadata
can be searched by others. This is the purpose of the
Go-Geo! portal.
Three main arguments can be made for motivating individuals
and organisations to create metadata:
- metadata creation can provide security and structure
for internal dataset management;
- it can provide an opportunity to locate and access
external datasets that can be used to augment or
complement existing datasets;
- it can be seen as a way of marketing the dataset,
even to recover some costs incurred in creation;
- it makes clear issues of IPR and enables the context
in which data were collected to be retained, so
that appropriate and meaningful re-use of the data
can be made in the future.
The benefits of metadata creation can be introduced
in a number of ways to the dataset collector or holder
and users.
The case made for internal management
rests on several key points:
- metadata creation helps to establish an operational
structure for managing and storing dataset information
for departmental and intra-departmental use;
- implementing a metadata strategy assures the integrity
of existing and new datasets as metadata can be
used as a tracking mechanism to monitor changes
and edits to datasets;
- it also, of itself, provides an inventory of
datasets to reduce redundancy and the time required
to reassess existing datasets for new and future
applications;
- metadata creation eliminates or reduces the risk
of redundancy in data collection or deletion of
existing datasets;
- the disruptive effects of staff turnover are
minimised, especially for those members working
independently on data capture projects;
- the introduction of metadata ensures that a standard
is in place so that the same information about every
dataset is captured.
All these benefits of metadata creation
ultimately protect the investments of time and cost
dedicated to data development.
Important benefits can be gained with
the release of metadata to the geo-spatial community.
These include:
- it helps to ensure that other organisations will
not replicate data at added cost and time;
- it contributes to the research base by providing
potential users with the means to select datasets
to complement or augment their existing in-house
datasets;
- it can contribute to the widening of the research
agenda by providing potential users with a dataset
catalogue from which to view the wider picture of
datasets which already exist (the discovery of a
dataset may instigate the user to develop an idea
for a new application);
- the portal could serve as a repository for organisations
to manage their metadata and as an internal resource
to access and share datasets, saving an organisation
the time and costs associated with establishing
and maintaining internal servers to store, manage
and update metadata;
- the metadata and portal will complement and augment
other UK academic portals within the JISC IE as
well as the national UK NGDF GIGateway site.
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