A Metadata Manifesto: The Need for Global Health Metadata

Administrative health data recorded for individual health episodes (such as births, deaths, physician visits, and hospital stays) are being widely used to study policy-relevant scientific questions about population health, health services, and quality of care. Furthermore, an increasing number of international health comparisons are being undertaken with these data. An essential pre-requisite to such international comparative work is a detailed characterization of existing international health data resources, so that they can be more readily used in comparison studies across counties. A major challenge to such international comparative work is the variability across countries in the extent, content, and validity of existing administrative data holdings. Recognizing this, we have undertaken an international pilot process of compiling detailed data about data – i.e., a “meta-data catalogue” – for existing international administrative health data holdings. The methodological process for collecting these meta-data is described here, along with some general descriptive results for selected countries included in the pilot

Celebrating 10 Years of Government of Canada Metadata Standards

As the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative celebrates its 15th anniversary, the Government of Canada (GC) celebrates its 10th year of making information easier to find. The Government of Canada officially adopted the Dublin Core as its core metadata standard for Web resource discovery in 2001. Soon the Government of Canada started to develop domain-specific metadata beyond Web and resource discovery to meet wider information needs. Supported by standards and other policy instruments, rapid metadata developments were made in the areas of records management, Web content management, e-learning, executive correspondence and geospatial data. The Government of Canada has been an active participant in the DC-Government Working Group, and organized its own event, the Canadian Metadata Forum in 2003 and 2005. More recently, the Government of Canada has adopted an enterprise information architecture (EIA) approach to metadata, within a larger information management strategy. The Government of Canada now has plans underway to develop other metadata domains, registries and repositories, its own namespace facility, and a vast awareness campaign to brand metadata as the “DNA of Government”

Celebrating 10 years of Government of Canada metadata standards

As the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative celebrates its 15th anniversary, the Government of Canada (GC) celebrates its 10th year of making information easier to find. The Government of Canada officially adopted the Dublin Core as its core metadata standard for Web resource discovery in 2001. Soon the Government of Canada started to develop domain-specific metadata beyond Web and resource discovery to meet wider information needs. Supported by standards and other policy instruments, rapid metadata developments were made in the areas of records management, Web content management, e-learning, executive correspondence and geospatial data. The Government of Canada actively participated in the DC-Government Working Group, and organized its own event, the Canadian Metadata Forum in 2003 and 2005. More recently, the Government of Canada has adopted an enterprise information architecture (EIA) approach to metadata, within a larger information management strategy. The Government of Canada now has plans underway to develop other metadata domains, registries and repositories, its own namespace facility, and a vast awareness campaign to brand metadata as the \u201cDNA of Government\u201d.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye