[Esip-preserve] context, metadata, and provenance

[James Frew]

On 2011-04-05 09:56, Bruce Barkstrom wrote:
> In looking at the Wiki, I agree with Mark on the difference between
> provenance and context.  We need some concrete illustrations of
> the differences between them.  Also, in talking with Alice, she suggested
> that "metadata is data that leads to data" -- which I think might be a
> more useful definition than "data about data".

Metadata is the representation of context.

"Contextual metadata" is redundant: all metadata is context.

To distinguish between metadata and context *generally* is to 
distinguish between context that we can represent and context that we 
can't. This is a useful distinction when discussing (for example) 
metadata standards.

To distinguish between *the* metadata and context of a *particular* 
resource is not useful: the metadata is the only information we have 
about the resource's context, and therefore *is* the context.

I.e. 99.44% of the time, metadata = context.

Provenance is a specific kind of context (and therefore a specific kind 
of metadata) that describes how a resource was *derived*. From 
http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/prov/XGR-prov-20101214/#Provenance_and_Metadata 
:

"... metadata of a resource only becomes part of its provenance when one 
also specifies its relationship to deriving the resource. For example, a 
file can have a metadata property that states its size. But, this, is 
not typically considered provenance information since it does not relate 
to how the file was created. The same file can have metadata regarding 
its creation date, which would be considered provenance-relevant 
metadata. So even though a lot of metadata potentially has to do with 
provenance, both terms are not equivalent. In summary, provenance is 
often represented as metadata, but not all metadata is necessarily 
provenance."

/Frew