Metadata for Creators

Abstract

Metadata is generally viewed from a third-party perspective, standing aside from both the creator and the audience of a work. This paper looks at the problem from the creator's standpoint: metadata that is deeply intertwined with the process of creation. Two important classes of metadata stand out: signature metadata, which is for the creator of a work to claim authorship and communicate with their audience, and process metadata, which is to help the creator recover key details of the creation process for themselves to drive further creation. Some key techniques for capturing and embedding signature and process metadata are detailed for a particular use case are described, along with some lessons learned.