Handling metadata for statistical and other databases

Abstract

Metadata, data about data, provides information on various facets of our data. It facilitates survey design as well as data discovery, analysis and retrieval. Given the many requirements to incorporate and deal with metadata in statistical applications, metadata tools in commonly used statistical software would be very useful. R presents an opportunity for this. However, the common problems of metadata such as metadata capture and the diversity of difficulties of adding functions to R under Windows bring a big challenge for incorporating metadata functions into R. This thesis aims to present the possibility for handling metadata in the statistical system, R. It provides an R package with functions to facilitate metadata management. Taking the advantage of the metadata levels and templates defined in the thesis, the functions attempt to implement (semi-) automatic metadata capture and updating. In addition, the functions provide the examples of programming with R especially for the novice. Furthermore, this thesis supplies a guideline of the future work, that is, a road map for the development of R metadata tools.