Using XML to store Descriptive Metadata

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Using XML to store Descriptive Metadata

• Richard Murphy Rosarie ORiordan
• Central Statistics Office
• Ireland

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Background

• Project to build a Corporate Data Warehouse
• Business Process Improvement Project to document
  all processes
• Data and Metadata now known
• How to gather all metadata into one structure?

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Proposed Solution

• Use XML to build a metadata repository
• Scaleable and Web enabled
• Possibility of being integrated with core
  metadata
• Integration with further developments

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Tools Used

• HTML Hyper Text Markup Language
• XML EXtensible Markup Language
• XSL EXtensible Stylesheet Language
• ASP Active Server Pages
• JavaScript JavaScript is a scripting language
  

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XML HTMLEXtensible MarkUp
Language Hyper Text
Markup Language

• XML is about describing information
• XML was designed to describe data, and to focus
  on what data is
• XML is a markup language much like HTML
• XML tags are not predefined in XML. You must
  define your own tags
• XML uses a Document Type Definition (DTD) or an
  XML Schema to describe the data

• HTML is about displaying information
• An HTML file is a text file containing small
  markup tags
• The Markup tags tells the Web brower how to
  display the page
• An HTML file can be created using a simple text
  editor
• HTML was designed to display data, and to focus
  on how data looks.

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XSL
EXtensible Stylesheet Language

• There must be something in addition to the XML
  document that describes how the document should
  be displayed and that is XSL!
• XSL consists of three parts
• XSLT (a language for transforming XML documents)
• XPath (a language for defining parts of an XML
  document)
• XSL Formatting Objects (a vocabulary for
  formatting XML documents)

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Critical Success Factors

• Infrastructural Issues
• Operational Issues
• Content Rules
• Official Corporate Policy

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Future Developments

• Corporate Look and Feel
• Integrate with Core Data and Metadata
• Other Modules
• Release Calendar
• Access through Theme List
• Publication Catalogue
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Glossary of Terms/Thesaurus

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Future Developments ctd

• Scaleable to include new fields
• Archiving
• Version Control
• Rules and Standards

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Other points

• Keep it simple
• Functionality Complexity
• Multiple access points to metadata but
• Store once reference many
• Workable Solutions n.e. High Tech

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Thank You for Listening