Abstract
Almost every organization, public or private, for profit or non-profit, manages data in some way. Data is a major corporate resource. It is produced, analyzed, stored, and disseminated. And, it is poorly documented. Descriptions of data are essential for their proper understanding and use by people inside and outside the organization. For instance, systems for disseminating data on the Internet require these descriptions (Census Bureau, n.d.). Either inside or outside the organization, functions of the system support finding the right data for a study, understanding data from a particular source, and comparing data across sources or time (Gillman, Appel, & LaPlant, 1996).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Object: Something conceivable or perceivable. This subsumes the object-oriented notion of object.
Semantics: The study of meaning. Data semantics is the meaning denoted by some data.
Metadata: Data that is used to describe some other resource, including other data. No data is always metadata, but all data may be used as metadata under particular circumstances or context.
Concept: Mental constructs, units of thought, or unit of thought differentiated by characteristics.