The Ethics of the Creation, Distribution, and Use of Metadata Essay

The Ethics of the Creation, Distribution, and Use of Metadata Navigation This paper discusses the ethical issues that may arise in the creation, distribution, and use of metadata. To do this, one must first understand what metadata is, and have a reasonable understanding of how it is used today. Metadata is not a word that the average person can state a definition for. In fact, even many technologically inclined people may not have a sound idea of what exactly metadata means. Although many people don’t recognize the name, metadata, many people look at, use, or even create metadata on a daily basis. To truly appreciate how important metadata is one must have a firm grasp on what metadata allows and how difficult information retrieval is without it. What is Metadata? â€Å"The variety and amount of information and information-dependent activities from which we can choose seems to be expanding exponentially.†1 The huge amount of information available, that covers a vast number of topics, requires an efficient way to access this information if any reasonable learning is to take place. This is exactly what metadata does. It categorizes the information created by one person so that others may find it and utilize it. Metadata could be said to be â€Å"information about information† or â€Å"data about data.†2 If metadata’s purpose, â€Å"is to enable integration and retrieval within information systems,† 3 then it needs interoperability, or â€Å"the ability of software and hardware on multiple machines from multiple vendors to communicate.†4 This means that for metadata to have a positive effect, or to actually be helpful, standards must be in place, so that one person’s metadata can be comparably likened to a second person’s metadata, and th... ...2 Amy Brand, Frank Daly, Barbara Meyers, "Metadata Demystified," The Sheridan Press and NISO Press (July 2003). <www.niso.org/standards/resources/ Metadata_Demystified.pdf> 3 Brody (35) 4Dictionary.com, 2003, Lexico Publishing Group LLC, 17 Nov. 2003, <http://dictionary.reference.com> 5Eddie Byrne, Metadata A Primer, 2000, WebSeach, 21 Oct. 2003, <http://www.clubi.ie/webserch/metadata.html> 6Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, 2003, DCMI, 24 Oct. 2003, <http://dublincore.org> 7 DCMI 8 Brody (36) 9James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy 4th ed., (New York, NY:McGraw-Hill 2003) 93. 10Manuel G Velasquez, Business Ethics: Concepts and Cases 4th ed., (New Jersey:Prentice Hall Inc. 1998) 105. 11 Velasquez (94) 11 Rachels (175) 13 Brody (35) 14 Brody (36) 15 Brody (37) 16 Brody (37) 17 Brody (38)