Different communities create, collect, manage, and use different types of information. These communities may have different concerns and approaches to metadata. There is no single standard that can satisfy all the needs across communities.
However, in order for metadata to be understandable to the people and software applications that use it, some sort of consistency is required. Organizations often define and publish metadata standards to meet needs broadly across knowledge domains or within specialized disciplines. Published standards help system designers and end users accomplish their goals effectively.
Explore the different pages in this section of the guide to learn more about metadata standards.