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• 1 2020-03-08T22:31:30-07:00 Metadata 20 image_header 2020-03-09T22:40:21-07:00 Metadata is data about data. It gives context, background information, description and navigation information about data. In this, we will explore two types of metadata. Descriptive and structural metadata. Descriptive metadata describes the data. It gives an explanation to what the data is about, it gives context to what that data shows. For example, going to see details about a photo taken on a smartphone or most modern cameras, we can see the photos title/name, the date and time it was taken, the file type and size, type of camera, the lens, exposure, if flash was used, location data or not and so on. These information give description to what the photo is and show the details to give context. Descriptive metadata can be used in many different ways. As the example, the details of the photo can be used to replicate the photo, get the location information and explore more about the location, compare how different exposure levels affect a photo.  Another example of descriptive metadata is data about a book, article, newspaper, video, movie, and documentaries. The title, author, date, publisher, producer, sponsor and information about that particular writing or media can be used for citation, research, and archives. 
  
  On the other hand, structural metadata is “containers of data and indicates how compound objects are put together, for example, how pages are ordered to form chapters. It describes the types, versions, relationships and other characteristics of digital materials.” Structural metadata can be used to give description about how a data is structured. For example is data with a table, it is important to know how to locate the data within the table such that the metadata will have data on how the table is set up. It could also contain information about how to locate each data within the table. Such metadata can be used for making changes to the actual data, reading the information and for file types such as CSV files, it gives a flexibility to whether see the data in long comma separated string format or in more structured table format. Especially when working with a large datasets, structural metadata becomes crucial because it helps to make sure the information does not get out of hand and easier to work with.