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Understanding the Role of Metadata in Finding and Using Statistical Information. Carol A. Hert, University of Washington, Tacoma, USA Sheila O. Denn, Simmons College, Boston, USA. Background. 7+ years working with the US Federal statistical agencies on aspects of dissemination to end-users
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Understanding the Role of Metadata in Finding and Using Statistical Information Carol A. Hert, University of Washington, Tacoma, USA Sheila O. Denn, Simmons College, Boston, USA
Background • 7+ years working with the US Federal statistical agencies on aspects of dissemination to end-users • What types of users? • For what types of tasks are the using the info? • What would improve their experiences? • Help systems • Discovery tools • Metadata to support finding and use • Metadata schema development
Why User Studies? • Rationale for user studies • Help identify additional elements • Indicate which elements are most useful in supporting certain tasks • Thereby enabling prioritization of metadata creation for an item • Provides insight into utility of a metadata schema
User Studies To Date • User Uncertainties with Tabular Statistical Data • Metadata Needs During Integration Tasks • The Metadata Requirements to Support Statistical Comparisons • Key Metadata Elements in Assessing Relevance (in finding tasks) • Study in development
Some Key Findings Across the Studies • Findability requires different metadata than understandability • For understandability: rationales, definitions, and more depth in general is required • Comparing is a key activity (both in finding and understanding) • Comparisons require metadata beyond basic description (such as information on periodicity of a statistic, smallest (largest) geo unit included, etc.) • While some metadata are relatively accessible to end-users, some are not: most importantly, rationales are challenging to find and may not exist
Current Status of our Work • Schema development: • Using DDI3.0, assessing need for non-DDI elements (based on our user studies, in-depth interaction with experts) • Further questions: • To what extent do needs for metadata “transcend” a particular statistical domain • Metadata to support all end-user tasks • Tool development based on the metadata schema • Assessing the quality of metadata creation efforts
Contact Information • Carol Hert: cahert@u.washington.edu • Sheila Denn: sheila.denn@simmons.edu • Technical Reports and other related information at: http::/ils.unc.edu/govstat