The Role of Metadata in Using Administrative Sources

Judicious statistical use of administrative sources presupposes a considerable amount of information about available data. However, considering the typical operational background of administrative sources, it is little wonder that, in general, statistical data documentation of otherwise valuable information stores leaves much to be desired. Having in mind the apparent difficulties and obstacles of documenting data post-hoc, this paper promotes a meta-information modelling approach placing description structures into a processing context from the very beginning. After discussing the specific meta-information requirements in using statistical registers, a terminology-based register metadata model is outlined, discussing both its virtues and still unresolved issues. Proofs to be sent to: Karl A. FROESCHL Department of Statistics and Decision Support Systems Universität Wien A-1010 Wien, Universitätsstraße 5, Austria Tel. (+43 1) 42 77 – 38614 Fax (+43 1) 42 77 – 9386 mailto: [email protected]