Question

Describe the purpose and construction of a data dictionary and the importance of metadata in an electronic environment.

Answer 1

Data dictionary is also called data definition matrix provides detailed information about the business data such as standard definition of data elements, their meaning and allowable values. It store and communicate meta data about data in a database, a system or data used by applications.

Purpose

1. To document the data for users, developers and other stakeholders
2. To communicate.
3. To help application deveopers create form and report with proper data types and control.
4. To integrate the data.
5. Decision making such as assisting in planning data collection, project development and other collaborative efforts.

Metadata have important role in digital resource management. Metadata is information about one or more aspects of data. It help to summarizes the data which can make tracking and working with specific data easier. The purpose are data description, data browsing, data transfer. It means machine understandable information to identify, locate and describe web resources It provide factual information related to data such as who took a photographs, where a video was shot, when speech was record etc.