Metadata publishing is the process of making metadata data elements available to external users, both people and machines using a formal review process and a commitment to change control processes. Metadata publishing is the foundation upon which advanced distributed computing functions are being built. But like building foundations, care must be taken in metadata publishing systems to ensure the structural integrity of the systems built on top of them.

Definition of metadata publishing

Published metadata has the following characteristics:

Benefits of metadata publishing

When classifying benefits of metadata publishing two groups are usually considered. External parties are usually consumers of information that are not part of the publishing organization. Internal parties are usually the various business units or departments within an organization.

Benefits to external parties

Benefits to internal parties

Objections to metadata publishing

Core process in metadata publishing

The following are some of the core processes in metadata publishing

File format metadata publishing

Organizations that create applications that store data in file systems can also publish metadata definitions. One common way to perform this is to store application data in a compressed XML file format. The XML files can be uncompressed and validated against an external XML Schema. An example of this is done by the Open Source FreeMind tool.

Metadata publishing formats