Using XML to store Descriptive Metadata

Richard Murphy Rosarie O’Riordan

Central Statistics Office

Ireland

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?

Proposed Solution

• Use XML to build a metadata repository

• Scaleable and Web enabled

• Possibility of being integrated with core metadata

• Integration with further developments

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]

XML HTML{EXtensible 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.

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)

Critical Success Factors

• Infrastructural Issues

• Operational Issues

• Content Rules

• Official Corporate Policy

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

Future Developments ctd

• Scaleable to include new fields

• Archiving

• Version Control

• Rules and Standards

Other points

• Keep it simple

• Functionality = Complexity

• Multiple access points to metadata but– Store once reference many

• Workable Solutions n.e. High Tech

Thank You for Listening