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What is a Data Registry?
What is a Data Registry?
The Data Registry is a "storage container" that provides important information about environmental data that is called metadata. The metadata includes:
- Semantic information that can help a user understand the data's meaning
- Representational information that specifies the form of presentation; e.g., format, length, permitted values, and datatype
- Naming and identification information
- Specifications for standard data to be incorporated in new and reengineered systems to promote data interchange
- Administrative information about the metadata steward and the quality of the metadata
It can also be the repository where the data in an information system is described.
The Registry provides a system to record what is known about environmental data and to understand that data. Using the Registry, environmental data developers and collectors can document data for which they are responsible one time, and one time only, so that there is no need to repeatedly explain the data to each organization or individual interested in the data (unless the system changes).
The Registry is a tool designed to:
- Promote uniform data documentation
- Foster information integration and sharing across EPA and with states, tribes, and other EPA partners.
- Support implementation of data standards
- Follow international standards in its design
The Registry does not contain the actual data from EPA information systems but rather the information about that data – the metadata that enables a user to better understand, access, and share system’s information.
It serves as a:
- Repository for data dictionaries of EPA’s major information collections
- Repository for EPA standard data elements with names, definitions, and format information for system developers to use
- Repository for EPA code sets (also known as permissible or valid value lists)
- Data management tool
It enables enterprise and system architects to analyze information managed by EPA and to reduce redundancies.
The Registry organizes data elements across EPA by application system and by common concepts. The data elements are uniquely defined and identified so that information can be shared throughout the EPA and integrated across EPA systems.
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What is Metadata?
Metadata is plain, ordinary, everyday, garden variety data. The concept of metadata is often confusing, partly because it lacks a clear definition.
Metadata is a type of data that describes and defines other data, but what makes it different from ordinary data is how it is used. It is found in documents, messages, images, sound streams, and videos. The term metadata or "data about data" also refers to data that are used to describe a data set, such as the content, quality, and condition of data. It is the information that answers questions like:
- Who owns the data?
- What is the meaning of the data?
- How was the data collected?
- How is the data named and identified?
- Who may use the data?
- How current is the data?
- How is the data represented?
It is a set of facts about data and other information elements. It is everything except for the data itself, and it is undeniably important.
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