Educational Information in the Web: Discussing the Metadata Requirements for a Web Service Guiding Citizens' Education

The paper discusses the metadata needs of a national web-based Opintoluotsi (“Study adviser”, “Study pilot”) service, which is being developed by the Finnish Ministry of Education. This service aims to provide information about education and training for citizens. The service is discussed here from the viewpoint of metadata and its role in information seeking especially in the World Wide Web. The results of a study made in the first phase of the Opintoluotsi project about educational institutions’ web sites and their use of metadata show that metadata is used rarely. From this point of view, it is important to inform the educational institutions about the importance of metadata for information retrieval and visibility in the Internet.