2. Definitions

DCMI - Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, the maintenance agency for the Dublin Core.

Element - a discrete unit of data or metadata. An element may contain sub-elements that are called qualifiers

Metadata - structured information that describes and/or enables finding, managing, controlling, understanding or preserving other information over time.

Qualifier - a mechanism for refining element semantics or to provide information for understanding element values.

Refinement - a property of a resource which shares the meaning of a particular element but with narrower semantics.

Resource - anything that has identity (the same definition as in Internet RFC2396).

Scheme - an encoding scheme used to structure NZGLS values, or the name of a thesaurus or controlled vocabulary that is the source of a value.

Value - the content of a metadata element, which provides information about a characteristic or attribute of a resource.

For further definitions refer to the Dublin Core Glossary, available from: http://www.dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/