A Web-Based Metadata Schema Repository

The metadata schema of a digital archive describes the structure and attributes of metadata. Analysis and definition of metadata schema for a new digital archive must be carefully carried out and determined at the first stage of development. To ease the task, we used an Extensible Markup Language (XML) structure to represent the metadata schema, and then designed and implemented a metadata schema repository to store metadata schemas as XML documents in a native XML database. The metadata schema repository supports storage, creation, search, and access management of metadata schemas. A user can access the repository through a Web browser. With this repository, projects and organizations can share their metadata schemas over the Internet. Since the metadata schema must be displayed on a Web browser, we also present the method of translating the XML representation of metadata schema into the HyperText Markup Language document. Key-Words: Digital archive, Extensible Markup Language, HyperText Markup Language, Metadata schema repository, Native XML database, Web-based