A simple structure for statistical meta-data

Abstract

The paper is a contribution to the debate about the nature of meta-data. The author argues that meta-data is not just data because its effective use requires functionality which is not usually present in an RDBMS. He presents a simple data structure for storing statistical meta-data and discusses the functionality needed for statistical uses. However, because meta-data is data one can use standard RDBMS facilities as well, to increase the usefulness of the meta-data beyond the basic requirements.