An Easier Way for Creating Model Metadata

Easier is cheaper, and cheaper is better for everyone!

Here’s the Idea:

Develop a web interface, “fill in the blank” form where metadata could be entered, answering simple questions and selecting from code lists, etc.

Throw in a little XML

The information would be tagged with the corisponding short name tag, and then the data could be put transferred into two different formats.

Either:

A document format

or

A file that can be stored in a model database

A Pretty Document

The short names would have their spot on a basic document format. Each location on this document where a short name tag exists, would be replaces with it’s corrisponding.

Model Title: <title>Version of Model: <version>Responsible Party: <respparty>Date of creation: <date>Keywords: <keyword>

Model Title: CToM: The Crosier Toast modelVersion of Model: 1.1Responsible Party: Crosier, S. J.Date of creation: 2000-07-01Keywords: toast, breakfast, cooking

A Little Computer

Magic

An XML FileThe data that was entered could also be converted, using the

standardized short names, into an XML file which could be easily transferred or stored.

The modeler could create one XML file for his or her model. They could store a copy of the file, and could send the file to anyone who was interested in

knowing more about the model.

A downloadable XML reader would be available that anyone could use to enter this XML file into, and could read the file.

<title>CToM: The Crosier Toast Model</title> <version>1.1</version><respparty>Crosier, S.J.</respparty><createdate>2000-07-01</createdate><keyword>toast</Keyword><keyword>breakfast</keyword><keyword>cooking</keyword>

A Model Database

An organization (like ADL) could request these files from modelers who have models that are of interest to the group or oganization.

These files would be cataloged according to short names.

The database could save all of the metadata elements, or be selective in what they store.

The database could then be queried according to specific elements of metadata, for example, a range of dates of creation, the model creator, the keywords, etc..

Other Applications

If this type of technology could be developed for model metadata, then metadata files for other topics could be created in the same way.

This would bring down the cost of metadata creation and transfer, which would promote more complete metadata creation and collection.

Easier is cheaper, and cheaper is better for everyone!