The metadata required for faceted search, hierarchical navigation, and "best bets" typically resides in an application's internal proprietary data structure. Users can enter metadata for these features manually, but many enterprise-grade applications also allow importing from an external source. With SharePoint 2010, we now see a similar capability in a decentralized application also used by departments, business units, and teams. This opens the door to metadata independence — separation of descriptive data (e.g. author, title) from content objects — and exposes local content owners to new kinds of decisions and tasks.

In this article, we look how and why independent metadata structures evolve in organizations, describe common metadata storage structures, and discuss the implications for policy, value-creation, and staffing.

What is metadata independence?
Metadata independence is the separation of descriptive data from associated content. An example is a library catalog where each card or record (the metadata) refers to a book on a shelf (the content object). In contrast, think of an email application where the metadata (e.g. message date, folder label) is embedded in the program's internal data structure.

From the software developer's perspective, embedding metadata in the application (e.g. search, email) is easy and efficient. From the user's perspective, this approach works well for personal or localized information.

Problems arise when individuals work as part of a team, different business units need to share information, information must be aggregated for reporting purposes, or users need to find information on a certain topic in a large and diverse content collection. Consider the following examples:

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Created on June 22, 2010 l Updated on June 24, 2010