A Hierarchy of Metadata Elements for Business Intelligence Information Resource Retrieval

摘要

Effectively managing information resources is an important activity contributing to the competitive advantage of modern organizations. Organizational knowledge workers must be able to search for pertinent information quickly and effectively. This research identifies the relative usefulness of the metadata elements associated with the Dublin Core metadata standard for the effective retrieval of three different information resources - structured business intelligence reports, structured spreadsheet reports, and unstructured reports in formats such as Word and PowerPoint. A survey of knowledge workers was conducted to determine the relative usefulness of the metadata elements for each of the three information resources and to develop a framework outlining where metadata tag requirements differ between such resources. Overall, the study and resulting framework emphasize the need for system developers and database management personnel to be cognizant of the type of information resources being used, and ensure that search metadata elements that are appropriate for these specific resources are in place.