Metadata Standards Metadata is data that describes and gives information about other data. It can describe structured data or human-readable content. The Data Management Body of Knowledge (DMBOK®) (see References), defines metadata as “data used to manage and use data”, and says that it “describes what data an organization has, how it is classified, where it came from, how it moves within the organization, how it evolves through use, who can and cannot use it, and whether it is of high quality”. Metadata is often used to describe the semantics of data. Semantics can be defined as the meaning or relationship of meanings of a sign or set of signs (Merriam-Webster Dictionary; see References). In the context of data, this is the meaning or relationship of meanings of a data value or collection of data values. Data semantics standards generally assume some kind of data structure. Metadata can also be used to hold information that supports data management and integration processes, such as data synchronization, governance, quality control, defense, and security. For example, creation/modification time information can support data synchronization. Metadata may be provided by a data storage system such as those shown in Table 9. Table 9: Examples of Data Storage Systems