Meta Data Coalition calls for user support

An industry coalition has launched an initiative to involve users in the campaign standardise metadata, which it says will allow non-technical users to handle and manipulate databases - saving time and expense.

Metadata is a header that describes the nature of information within a database, and includes important languages like HTML and XML. Developers use metadata to label and organise information - such as address and information fields.

Currently, if a business wants to merge one database with another it has to employ a developer to decipher the data. But the Meta Data Coalition (MDC) - whose database vendor members include IBM, Sybase and Microsoft - claims creating a standard would mean ordinary users could do this themselves.

Katherine Hammer, MDC's chairwoman, delivered a rallying cry to users in London on Tuesday, saying: "Businesses must put pressure on their database vendors to set up metadata standards that non-technical people can use."

She explained the need for a standard is growing because of an increasing trend in outsourcing which means people are more temporary and lose track of where data is kept and how it is classified. She added it is also more necessary now as the number of mergers and acquisition is increasing, leading to more merging of business information.