NIST AND PARTNERS HELP BLAZE THE PATH TO METATOPIA.Having an enormous amount of information at your disposal to help you make decisions is a wonderful experience. Yet, people often complain of the overload problem that comes from having too much data. Some researchers believe a partial solution may be found in metadata--essentially data about data that describe how, when and by whom a particular set of data was collected, and how the data are formatted. If it works well, say IT experts, you have a state of information heaven, or "metatopia." To help data managers reach this "IT Nirvana nirvana (nērvä`nə), in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism, a state of supreme liberation and bliss, contrasted to samsara or bondage in the repeating cycle of death and rebirth. ," NIST (National Institute of Standards & Technology, Washington, DC, www.nist.gov) The standards-defining agency of the U.S. government, formerly the National Bureau of Standards. It is one of three agencies that fall under the Technology Administration (www.technology. is sponsoring Metatopia 2001, a symposium on metadata and data management, on Sept. 20-21, 2001, at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, MD. The conference is of interest to executives in fields such as data mining, knowledge management, and data warehousing See data warehouse. data warehousing - data warehouse . The primary focus is on metadata and how it can be standardized. The Data Management Association-National Capital Region is co-sponsoring the conference along with the ANSI (American National Standards Institute, New York, www.ansi.org) A membership organization founded in 1918 that coordinates the development of U.S. voluntary national standards in both the private and public sectors. It is the U.S. member body to ISO and IEC. NCITS See ITI. Metadata Committee (L8). |
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