What the Heck Is Metadata?
Posted: December 13, 2012 | Author: Tamara Bredemus | Filed under: Metadata, What is... | Tags: Metadata | 9 CommentsWhen people define metadata as “Data about data” I want to poke them in the eye. That definition doesn’t help anyone understand what metadata really is.
If you want to help your users understand what metadata is try this:
Show them a photo of my dog Stella…
Ask your users to describe the photo.
You’ll start hearing things like:
- Dog
- Black and White
- Little
- Cute
- Outside
- Autumn
- Boston Terrier
Your users just defined metadata for this picture.
So in a SharePoint Picture Library you could add the following columns:
Column Name |
Choices |
Column Notes |
Animal |
Cat |
|
Color |
Black White Orange Green Brown |
Use check boxes to allow multiple selections |
Location |
Indoors |
|
Season |
Winter |
So back to the original question, “What the heck is metadata?” Metadata is how you describe something.
Consider a contract. I might call it the Anderson Contract for a $350,000 house build. That’s 3 pieces of metadata right there; Anderson, $350,000, House Build.
Metadata is the description of an item.