Statistical Metadata: a Unified Approach to Management and Dissemination

This article illustrates a unified conceptual approach to metadata, whereby metadata describing the information content and structure of data and those describing the statistical process are managed jointly with metadata arising from administrative and support activities. Many different actors may benefit from this approach: internal users who are given the option to reuse information; internal management that is supported in the decision-making process, process industrialisation and standardisation as well as performance assessment; external users who are provided with data and process-related metadata as well as quality measures to retrieve data and use them properly. In the article, a general model useful for metadata representation is illustrated and its application presented. Relationships to existing frameworks and standards are also discussed and enhancements proposed.