CIA Taxonomy and Metadata Design 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which metadata schema uses fifteen core elements—including Title, Creator, and Subject—as a baseline for resource description across disciplines?
- Schema.org
- Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (Correct answer)
- MARC 21
- EAD (Encoded Archival Description)
Correct answer: Dublin Core Metadata Element Set
Dublin Core defines 15 simple, widely interoperable elements for describing digital and physical resources.
Question 2: A controlled vocabulary that expresses equivalent, broader, narrower, and related term relationships between concepts is formally called a:
- Taxonomy
- Ontology
- Thesaurus (Correct answer)
- Classification scheme
Correct answer: Thesaurus
A thesaurus explicitly maps USE/UF (equivalence), BT/NT (hierarchical), and RT (associative) relationships between terms.
Question 3: When a single concept node can appear under multiple parent nodes in a taxonomy, this is known as:
- Monohierarchy
- Polyhierarchy (Correct answer)
- Faceted classification
- Flat enumeration
Correct answer: Polyhierarchy
Polyhierarchy allows nodes to have more than one parent, reflecting that concepts can legitimately belong to multiple categories.
Question 4: An organization wants metadata that describes other metadata—such as who created a metadata record and when. This is best termed:
- Structural metadata
- Descriptive metadata
- Administrative metadata
- Meta-metadata (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Meta-metadata
Meta-metadata (or provenance metadata) describes the metadata record itself, including its creator, creation date, and schema version.
Question 5: In the SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) model, the property skos:narrower is the inverse of:
- skos:related
- skos:broader (Correct answer)
- skos:altLabel
- skos:definition
Correct answer: skos:broader
skos:narrower and skos:broader are inverse properties representing hierarchical relationships in SKOS concept schemes.
Question 6: A metadata crosswalk is primarily used to:
- Enforce mandatory metadata fields during data entry
- Map equivalent elements between two different metadata schemas (Correct answer)
- Generate unique identifiers for each metadata record
- Define the physical storage structure of a metadata repository
Correct answer: Map equivalent elements between two different metadata schemas
A crosswalk is a mapping document or tool that shows how elements in one schema correspond to elements in another, enabling interoperability.
Question 7: Which taxonomy depth principle states that a taxonomy should generally have no more than 3–5 levels to remain usable for navigation?
- The Rule of Seven
- The Goldilocks Principle
- The Three-Click Rule
- The Shallow Hierarchy Principle (Correct answer)
Correct answer: The Shallow Hierarchy Principle
The Shallow Hierarchy Principle recommends limiting taxonomy depth so users do not have to navigate excessively deep trees to find content.
CIA Taxonomy and Metadata Design 2
Which metadata schema uses fifteen core elements—including Title, Creator, and Subject—as a baseline for resource description across disciplines?