Part A - The Corporate Context
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A.4. Metadata management strategies and policy framework
The focus of this chapter is on the preparation of a corporate SMS Vision, related planning and on the major characteristics of a metadata management framework and management strategies.
4.1 SMS Vision
This subchapter presents major goals and functions of the Vision. Furthermore, it assists to understand better what could be the objects of metadata description related to the functions defined in the Vision.
The Vision should clearly state the goals or aims of the SMS. It should apply across the entire SIS and be realistic and within the capabilities of the SO. It should also include a statement about scope: what is included in the SMS and what is not.
4.2 Vision Goals
An important prerequisite for successful design, implementation and functioning of the SMS is the development of a corporate Vision of SMS in the statistical organization. Th e functions of SMS, centered upon metadata and data users, are oriented towards the diverse processes and activities of SIS. Organizational units within a statistical agency, respondents and end users are all involved in the preparation, implementation and use of the SMS tools. The Vision should be developed with the direct involvement of senior management within the statistical agency.
The Vision should be an integral part of the strategic direction of the statistical organization. It is an important task for the SMS management to ensure that not only the development of the Vision but also the SMS design, implementation and further development will be monitored by senior managers. For this purpose a relevant management s tructure of SMS should be established. Feedback and evaluation, supported by metadata accumulated in the previous processing cycles, should be an integral part of the SMS design.
The Vision should define major goals and functions of SMS for the SO (see “ The Role of SMS in the Chapter A1) and attribute the priorities for implementation. It should clearly identify the users of statistical metadata (inside and outside the SO) and determine their rights and obligations in the phase of design and development of SIS.
The metadata requirements associated with each element of standard business are articulated. That is all the points of contact between the metadata model and business processes, in terms of creation, update and use activities should be described.
Important part of the Vision should be analysis of the state-of-art of the existing statistical metadata objects and services, finishing by clear specification what kind of existing metadata can be used in the corporate SMS, what kind of existing metadata and services should be updated and what kind of existing metadata should not be used at all. Especially when the latest mentioned possibility appears, it is desirable to support SO in its decision to cancel such metadata blocks.
It is advisable, that the SMS is not developed as a purely technical project. It is still quite often the case in the SOs that the subject matter departments do not understand fully the requests formulated by the IT specialists. When developing the Vision, it is essential to express clearly that the first priority in the SMS is given to the safeguarding of the content and methodological integration of statistical data and metadata.
To make SMS a success story, the Vision and its functions should be based on the real existing possibilities of the SO. Effective management of SIS and integration process of information flows on national and international levels should remain one of the major goals of SMS.
The Vision should also encompass cost propositions of the SMS project. Costs should be proposed based on the real possibilities of the SO. Warning signs should be made to a very broad (although theoretically correct) requirements for the metadata functions. Such proposals should be very pragmatic, reflecting ultimate needs and metadata priorities. The experience shows that the human capacities and financial factor in the SMS developments could be quite demanding.
Experience shows, that many SOs implemented some functional blocks of metadata without having a complete SMS Vision at the beginning of the process. It is especially true for the objects dealing with the description of statistical data. It can be observed, that namely the following blocks of metadata have been frequently implemented: statistical variables and values sets, statistical surveys, social-economic classifications and nomenclatures, time series, statistical publications, statistical population, economic subjects, statistical units, aggregation and statistical evaluation methods, output tables and others.
Without having a coherent Vision there is very often a lack of coordination among individual metadata blocs. It causes many inconsistencies, duplications and, last but not least, the low efficiency of metadata tools from both, costs and staff capacities needed. The end users could, because of lack of coordination, struggle with unnecessary diversity of users’ roles and related diversity of communication metadata languages. Such situation certainly does not stimulate enough joint cooperation of users with statistics on metadata implementation.
The Vision should contain a metadata model complying with the SMS functions. Such model should encompass metadata about data and processes behind them as well as metadata about other objects and processes of SIS relevant to the SMS functions, Metadata needed for the management and administration of statistical system and statistical organization like metadata about the costs and benefits, cost-effectiveness, satisfaction and complains should be also a part of such model. Metadata objects and links between them should be thoroughly defined.
An agreed conceptual metadata model should be linked to the standard business processes that are the part of the statistical life cycle. This linkage is used to determine what metadata should be collected. Metadata model should take account of and uses international standards where possible.
Figure 2 below provides an overview of the components of the SMS Vision.
Figure 2: Schematic View of the SMS Vision and its Components
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A.1. Introduction
A.2. Target audiences
A.3. Corporate Value Proposition for Metadata Management
A.4. Metadata management strategies and policy framework
A.5. Core principles for metadata management
A.6. Corporate Governance Models for Metadata Management
A.7. Case Studies and Experiences
Glossary of terms and abbreviations
References