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Ministry of Agriculture & Lands

Data Warehouse Meta-content

Data Warehouse Meta-content

 

Table of Contents

Link to follow-up report: Survey Results

September 1997

Executive Summary


The Information Management Branch (IMB) of the Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management(MSRM) is expanding its capability to manage structured and unstructured data across a distributed information management environment. The system will handle geographic, image, sound, document, and conventional data. The heart of such an environment is the meta-content repository. Meta-content is data that describe both database organization and the data's fitness for use (see Section 2 for a more complete definition).

The first steps in the development of a meta-content repository are to establish the roles the repository is to play, to identify the meta-content that supports those roles, and to design an information architecture to enable the business functions.

This report describes the results of a meta-content study by Mercator Systems to address issues of MSRM meta-content. It introduces a meta-content framework that clearly defines the potential roles the repository can play (Figure 1).



Figure 1. Recommended roles for MSRM meta-content. Meta-content should be used by MSRM to administer the database, assist in editing, document and oversee system architecture, aid in decision support, and describe marketing and utilitization.

The study performed a mid-stream review of MSRM's meta-content strategy, and identifies gaps and overlaps with provincial, national, and international meta-content standards. The standards compared were LandData BC Repository Model, the US Federal Geographic Data Committee's content standard, and the International Standard Organization's TC211 draft standard for metadata. The goals of the review were threefold:

  • determine how standards compare to MSRM's meta-content holdings
  • determine the difficulty of complying with each standard
  • glean the best ideas from the standards for adoption by MSRM.
Of the three goals, the last is the most important.

This meta-content report is in three logical parts. The first part is comprised of Sections 1, 2, and 3; it provides background on this study, on meta-content issues, and on MSRM's existing system strategies.

The second part is comprised of Sections 4, 5, and 6; it provides an analysis of the three meta-content standards, highlighting the best ideas from each, and explaining how they could apply to MSRM meta-content holdings. Each section on the standards includes a final summary to highlight the most important findings and recommendations.

The final part is comprised of Section 7 alone; it compiles the recommendations discussed throughout the report into a strategy for MSRM meta-content. The following table summarizes specific recommendations for improving MSRM meta-content.

Recommendation

Reference model(s)
Describe spatial extent by coordinate boundary.
FGDC, LDBC, TC211
Improve the description of coordinate systems, particularly datum and projection.
TC211
Add horizontal and vertical accuracy, and define business rules for the use of these data.
FGDC, TC211
Improve the identification information, particularly regarding the data originator and point of contact.
TC211
Improve quality descriptors, including accuracy, resolution, completeness, logical consistency, lineage, currency, and accountability.
FGDC, TC211
Provide the capability to link Information Sources to scanned documents, GIF files, and structured documents.
LDBC
Improve lineage information, including source reference, process steps, and processing software.
TC211, LDBC
Define the originating government Ministry, Department, Program, or Project.
LDBC
Adopt more normalized meta-types (e.g., citation, time period, and contact information).
FGDC, TC211
Consider adopting an information type hierarchy.
TC211
Provide for version control and change notification.
LDBC
Provide schema identification and browsing through Designer/2000 and off-the-shelf reporting tools.
D/2000
Consider including roles as part of Person/Org.
Mercator
Support the tracking of usage statistics, feedback on data quality, and meta-content provision to users.
LDBC

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