Semantic Interoperability and Metadata Quality : An Analysis of Metadata Item Records of Digital Image

This paper is a current assessment of the status of metadata creation and mapping between cataloger-defined field names and Dublin Core (DC) metadata elements across three digital image collections. The metadata elements that evince the most frequently inaccurate, inconsistent and incomplete DC metadata application are identified. As well, the most fre­ quently occurring locally added metadata elements and associated pattern development are examined . For this, a randomly col­ lected sample of 659 metadata item records from three digital image collections is analyzed. Implications and issues drawn from the evaluation of the current status of metadata creation and mapping are also discussed in relation to the issue of seman­ tic interoperability of concept representation across digital image collections. The findings of the study suggest that conceptual ambiguities and semantic overlaps inherent among some DC metadata elements hinder semantic interoperability. The DC me­ tadata scheme needs to be refined in order to disambiguate semantic relations of certain DC metadata elements that present semantic overlaps and conceptual ambiguities between element names and their corresponding definitions. The findings of the study also suggest that the development of mediation mechanisms such as concept networks that facilitate the metadata crea­ tion and mapping process are critically needed for enhancing metadata quality.