Metadata: Lessons Learned and Best Practices

Abstract

Metadata are an indispensable tool in environmental information systems, especially for finding and understanding environmental data. Despite their importance, however, collecting metadata for public environmental information systems is still an issue. After recapitulating the basics, this paper focuses on alternative approaches for collecting metadata and reviews related application areas. Eventually, several theses conclude the paper which aims at fostering the discussion in order to find out in how far metadata in environmental information systems may benefit from both proven and new approaches in other application areas.