Metadata glossary

UKOLN

Agent A software tool that performs a function on behalf of an end-user (often with little or no direct interaction with the user).
Agent In Dublin Core terms, the super-property of Creator, Contributor and Publisher. A person or corporate body.
AHDS Arts and Humanities Data Service. UK service funded by JISC to collect, describe, and preserve the electronic resources which result from research and teaching in the humanities.
Ariadne A parallel web and print journal for librarians and information specialists funded by JISC under eLib.
ASF Advanced Search Facility.
Attribute/value pair The combination of a metadata property and its value.
Broker A network service that provides a single interface to multiple (often remote) network services.
Bureau A third party serving metadata descriptions, e.g. a PICS label bureau.
Checksum A computed value which depends on the contents of a 'block of data'.
CIMI Computer Interchange of Museum Information. CIMI records are a SGML-based metadata format developed for museum information.
CLD Collection Level Description
CNI Coalition for Networked Information.
CNRI Corporation for National Research Initiatives.
CORBA Common Object Request Broker Architecture.
CURL Consortium of University Research Libraries.
DASL DAV Searching and Locating. See also: WebDAV.
DC See: Dublin Core.
DCMI See: Dublin Core.
DC-dot A program for creating Dublin Core metadata which can be pasted into the headers of Web pages.
DN Distinguished Name. An X.500 or LDAP object name.
DOI Digital Object Identifier.
DSig Digital Signatures Initiative. Work co-ordinated by W3C to develop a trust mechanism for the Web. Will be based on RDF.
DSTC Distributed Systems Technology Centre.
DTD Document Type Definition. An application program defining document types in a SGML context.
Dublin Core A metadata format defined on the basis of international consensus which has defined a minimal information resource description, generally for use in a WWW environment.
EAD Encoding Archival Description. A SGML-based metadata format developed for the description of archives.
EDI Electronic Data Interchange. The exchange of structured data messages to enable automated transactions between application systems.
FGDC Federal Geographic Data Committee. Organisation that defined FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata.
FRBR Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records.
GCL A controlled vocabulary for UK government categories.
GILS Government Information Locator Service. Metadata format created by the US Federal Government in order to provide a means of locating information generated by government agencies.
Handle System A distributed system developed by CNRI which resolves identifiers into the information necessary to locate and access resources.
Harvest A system providing a software architecture for gathering, indexing and accessing Internet information. Uses SOIF.
Hash Function See: Checksum.
HTML Hypertext Mark-up Language. The standard language used for creating Web documents.
HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol. The client-server protocol used for the exchange of HTML. See also: TCP/IP.
IAFA templates Internet Anonymous FTP Archive templates. Metadata format designed for Anonymous FTP archives, now adapted for use in ROADS project.
ICE Internet Content Exchange.
ICPSR Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Organisation that developed the ICPSR SGML Codebook Initiative - a structured metadata format to describe social science data sets.
IETF Internet Engineering Task Force.
IFLA International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
IMesh An international 'community' of subject gateway service providers.
IMesh-Toolkit A JISC/NSF funded project to develop a distributed architecture and software toolkit for developing subject gateways.
IMS Instructional Management System.
INDECS Interoperability of Data in E-Commerce Systems. A European funded project.
ISAAC The Isaac Network: Information Seeker's Avenue to Authoritative Content.
ISBN International Standard Book Number.
ISSN International Standard Serial Number.
ISO 8601 A date format endorsed by the W3C for use by Web-applications.
LDAP Lighweight Directory Access Protocol. Internet standard for directory services.
LOM IEEE Learning Object Metadata - a part of the IMS specification.
MARC MAchine Readable Cataloguing. A family of formats based on ISO 2709 for the exchange of bibliographic and other related information in machine readable form. For example, USMARC, UKMARC and UNIMARC.
MD5 A one-way hash function typically used within cryptography.
MeSH Medical Subject Headings.
Metadata Structured data about a resource.
METS Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard.
MODS Metadata Object Description Schema.
NISO National Information Standards Organization.
OAI Open Archives Initiative
OAI-PMH Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
OCLC On-line Computer Library Center.
PICS Platform for Internet Content Selection. Internet content filtering infrastructure.
PII Publisher Item Identifier.
Portal A Web-based gateway to Internet resources, often with other value-added services such as free email accounts.
PURL Persistent Uniform Resource Locator.
Push technology New Web technologies based on pushing information to end user.
RDF Resource Description Framework. RDF is currently under development within the W3C and provides a framework for metadata in different application areas, e.g. resource discovery, content ratings and intellectual property.
RDN Resource Discovery Network.
RDN Relative Distinguished Name. An X.500 or LDAP object name.
RDNC Resource Discovery Network Centre.
Reggie A Java-based metadata editor.
ROADS Resource Organisation And Discovery in Subject based services. eLib funded project developing software for use by Internet subject services. ROADS templates are a metadata format and are a development of IAFA templates.
RSS Rich Site Summary - a metadata format for syndicating web site headlines. It was created and popularised by Netscape for their personalised portal site.
SBIG Subject-Based Information Gateway. See: Subject Service.
SGML (ISO 8879) Standard Generalised Mark-up Language. An international standard for the description of marked-up electronic text.
SHHTP HTTP secured using SSL.
SICI Serial Item and Contribution Identifier.
SiRPAC RDF-XML parser developed by W3C.
SOIF Summary Object Interchange Format. A metadata format developed for use with the Harvest architecture.
SSI Server Side Include. Mechanism for dynamically generating parts of Web pages.
SSL Secure Socket Layer. A method for end-to-end network encryption.
stuff A neutral term for 'resource' (which absolves you from any need to define what you are talking about).
Subject Service Internet subject services or gateways. Typically give access to selected Internet resources based on subject coverage and quality criteria. For example: Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG).
Unicode A standard for international character encoding.
TCN See: Transparent Content Negotiation.
TCP/IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The Internet transport-level protocols, often used to refer to the entire collection of Internet protocols.
TEI Text Encoding Initiative. An attempt to define the encoding of literary and linguistic texts in electronic form. TEI headers are a SGML-based metadata format for the documentation of these electronic texts.
TERENA Trans-European Research and Education Networking Association.
TF-CHIC TERENA Task Force - Cooperative Heirarchical Indexing Coordination.
Transparent Content Negotiation Transparent Content Negotiation. Mechanism for transparent selection of content type - by format, language, etc.
UDDI Universal Description, Discovery and Integration
URC Uniform Resource Characteristics.
URI Uniform Resource Identifier. The super-set of URNs, URLs and URCs.
URL Uniform Resource Locator. The standard way to give the address of a source of information on the WWW. For example: http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/publications.html
URN Uniform Resource Name. Persistent identification for Web resources.
Warwick Framework An architecture for the exchange of distinct metadata packages involving the aggregation of metadata packages into containers.
Web robot A software robot which trawls the WWW, generating all-encompassing Web indexes. Also known as Web crawlers or Web spiders.
WebDAV Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning. An IETF Working Group.
Whois++ An Internet directory services protocol.
World Wide Web Consortium Organisation currently responsible for the development of Web protocols.
WWW World Wide Web.
W3C See: World Wide Web Consortium
XML Extensible Markup Language. A lightweight version of SGML designed for use on the Internet.
Z39.50 A NISO standard for an applications layer protocol for information retrieval which is specifically designed to aid retrieval from distributed servers.
ZNG Z39.50 Next Generation - a proposal to evolve Z39.50 to a more mainstream protocol based on XML, URI, SOAP (RPC), and HTTP.

See also


Maintained by: Michael Day and Andy Powell
Last updated: 07-Oct-2003

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