QandAs: Tech

What Is Metadata?

Answer:
Metadata can be thought of as “data about data.”

It refers to any sort of data found in a medium. It can take the form of text, voice, or an image that describes what your viewers will want or need to see or experience.

The audience for metadata is not necessarily a person, as it could also be a group or a piece of software. The importance of metadata cannot be overemphasized. It is necessary in order to clarify and find the actual data that is needed. The metadata can describe an individual item or even a collection of data in various hierarchal levels, such as a database schema. When thinking of a database, metadata will give you information and documentation about other data which is managed within the application or environment. The metadata will define the structure, or schema, of the primary data in the database.

Metadata gives all of your data context. It is used to aid in the understanding, usage, and management of data by humans and computers. Metadata will describe the data conceptually in order to allow others to be able to understand it. It can also refer to the syntax of the data. Together, these two types of descriptions can aid in decisions on how to manage the data.