A city council can have a lot of data: population register, files, taxes, licenses, facilities, contracts, activities, incidents, social assistance, complaints, subsidies or budget information. But why is it not enough to have a piece of data? Because having data does not necessarily mean understanding it well.
Let's imagine we find a file called “listat_final.xlsx”. What exactly does it contain? Is it the right version? Who created it? When was it last updated? Where does the data come from? Can it be shared? Does it contain personal data? Is it useful for making a report? Can it be published? Is it complete?
If we can't answer these questions, we have data, but we don't have enough context to use it with confidence. This is where metadata comes in. Metadata is, simply put, the data that explains the data.
What is metadata?
Metadata is descriptive information that helps us understand a piece of data or a set of data. For example, if we have a set of data about municipal facilities, the metadata can tell us:
- what is the data set called;
- what does it contain;
- which area is responsible for it;
- who keeps it updated;
- in which system or file it is located;
- how often is it updated;
- if it contains personal or sensitive data;
- whether it can be shared with other administrations;
- whether it can be published as open data;
- what level of quality does it have;
- for what uses is it suitable;
- What limitations does it have?
This information may seem very basic, but it is essential. Without metadata, data is hard to find, hard to interpret, and hard to reuse.
A very simple example
Consider a list of municipal facilities. The list may contain the name of the facility, the address, the type of facility, the hours, the responsible department, and the state of repair. However, if there is no metadata, doubts may immediately arise:
- Does this list only include facilities open to the public or also buildings for internal use?
- Does it include facilities managed by entities?
- Are the addresses standardized?
- Is the information up to date?
- Who validates that a facility remains active?
- Can this information be published on the municipal website?
- Is it useful for planning maintenance?
- Can it be cross-referenced with energy consumption data?
Metadata helps answer these questions. It provides context, criteria, and confidence.
Metadata isn't just for IT people
Metadata is often thought of as a technical subject, but in reality it is useful for anyone working with municipal information.
- For secretarial work, they can help to know which set of data is related to a procedure or file.
- For intervention, they can help identify the origin of an economic data.
- For social services, they can help to know which data is sensitive and what safeguards need to be applied.
- For urban planning, they can help understand whether territorial data is up-to-date and what use it can be made of.
- For citizen attention, they can help provide more coherent information.
- To transparència, can help you know what data can be published and under what conditions.
- For the ICT area or technology provider, they can help integrate systems and avoid confusion.
Therefore, metadata is a bridge between functional knowledge of services and technical information management.
Why are they important?
Often the knowledge about the data is in the heads of a few people. Someone knows which file is the right one. Someone knows when it was updated. Someone knows which application contains the good information. Someone knows which data can be sent to another administration. Someone knows how that report from last year was made. This knowledge is very valuable, but it is also fragile.
If it is not documented at a minimum, it can be lost with a change of staff, retirement, termination, change of supplier or internal reorganization. Metadata helps to convert this informal knowledge into shared knowledge. It does not have to be complex. A small municipality can start with a very simple sheet for the main data sets.
The goal is not to document everything, but to avoid essential information relying solely on the memory or experience of a specific person.
What minimal metadata would be useful?
To begin with, you don't need to describe all the technical details. You can start with a minimal set of very practical metadata.
For example:
- Dataset name.
- Brief description.
- Responsible area or service.
- Reference person or role.
- System, application or file where it is located.
- Main purpose.
- Update frequency.
- Type of data it contains.
- Existence of personal or sensitive data.
- Perceived level of quality.
- Main known problems.
- Possible internal uses.
- Possibility to share or publish.
This metadata already allows us to answer very relevant questions: what do we have, who knows it, where is it, if it is reliable, if it can be reused and if it requires special protection. It is a simple but very powerful foundation.
Metadata and quality: two sides of the same coin
Metadata also helps improve data quality. If we know who is responsible for a data set, it will be easier to correct errors. If we know how often it is updated, we can detect outdated information. If we know what its limitations are, we will avoid using it for inappropriate purposes. If we know where it comes from, we can check its reliability.
For example, an indicator on municipal activities may seem correct, but if we do not know whether all areas record activities with the same criteria, the result can be misleading. Metadata does not automatically guarantee that a piece of data is good, but it helps to understand to what extent we can trust it. It also helps to avoid a very common problem: using data out of context.
Metadata and transparència
When a city council publishes information, it is important that this information is understandable. It is not enough to publish a table, a document or a set of data. It is necessary to explain what representa, what period it is from, how it was prepared, how often it is updated and what limitations it may have. This is especially important in the field of transparència and open data.
Open data without metadata is difficult to reuse. It can generate confusion or misinterpretations. On the other hand, well-described data makes it easier for citizens, companies, entities, journalists, researchers or other administrations to understand and reuse it correctly. Metadata is therefore also an accountability tool.
Metadata and interoperability
Metadata is also essential for sharing information between administrations. When a piece of data needs to circulate between a city council, a provincial council, a regional council, the Generalitat or the State, it is necessary to understand what it means, what format it has, what identifier it uses, what level of quality it has and what restrictions apply to it.
Without metadata, data sharing can end up being an insecure, inefficient, or difficult-to-automate exchange. Metadata, on the other hand, facilitates interoperability: allowing systems and organizations to understand and use information in a consistent manner.
This is key to reducing administrative burdens and avoiding asking citizens for documents or information that the administration already has.
Metadata and artificial intelligence
There is more and more talk about artificial intelligence applied to public services. But any AI tool needs well-described data. It is not enough to have a lot of data. You need to know what it represents, where it comes from, if it is complete, if it is up-to-date, if it contains bias, if it contains personal data, if it can be used for a specific purpose and with what guarantees.
Metadata is a fundamental piece for making responsible use of artificial intelligence. Without metadata, it is difficult to know if a piece of data is suitable for training a model, building an indicator, automating a classification or supporting a decision. Therefore, working with metadata today is better preparing municipalities for the advanced uses of data tomorrow.
DCAT-AP-ES. Better describing municipal data
When a city council begins to make a data inventory, it can do so with a very simple sheet: name of the data set, description, responsible area, source system, update frequency, sensitivity, perceived quality and possible uses.
This is a very good first step. But if we want this information to be shared, compared, published or reused between administrations, it is important that this metadata follows a common model.
This is where DCAT-AP-ES can provide a lot of value.
DCAT-AP-ES is a metadata profile designed to describe public data catalogs in a homogeneous way. In plain language: it is a common way to explain what a dataset is, who publishes it, what it is about, how it can be accessed, in what format it is available, with what license it can be reused and what complementary information needs to be known.
This is especially useful for local authorities, because it allows municipal data to not be described in isolation or with different criteria in each municipality. If many local authorities describe their data following the same model, it will be easier to find, understand, compare, federate in supramunicipal catalogues and reuse them to generate services, indicators or open data.
For example, DCAT-AP-ES helps to differentiate between the data catalog, the dataset, and the different forms in which this dataset is available. A city council might have a dataset on municipal facilities and offer it in several formats: CSV, Excel, API, or web view. The metadata allows us to explain that all these versions correspond to the same dataset, but that each is a different distribution.
It also helps to standardize very important information: the title, description, responsible body, topic, keywords, update frequency, territorial coverage, format, license, access conditions or download link.
For a small town council, this does not mean having to learn a complex technical standard. It means that, when the minimum and common inventory of data from the local world is defined, it can be done with its future compatibility with DCAT-AP-ES in mind. Thus, the information collected today in a simple sheet can be used tomorrow to feed a data catalog, publish open data or share metadata with other platforms.
The role of the Smart Local Government Network
Small municipalities do not have to define on their own what metadata they need or how to collect it. The Smart Local Government Network can add value through its working groups, helping to establish a minimum and common inventory of data for the local world and, within that inventory, a shared set of core metadata.
This can allow all local entities to describe their data with similar criteria: name, description, responsible party, originating system, purpose, update frequency, quality, sensitivity, restrictions and potential for reuse.
The working groups will also be able to help define common metadata management models, adapted to the reality of local entities and especially useful for municipalities with less technical capacity.
In addition, the Network will be able to contribute to identifying or sharing technological solutions so that local governments do not have to create their own tools to document their data. These solutions should be simple, reusable and aimed at facilitating the maintenance of the inventory and metadata.
The Network can promote specific use cases that show the value of metadata: preparing open data, building common indicators, improving the quality of the register, organizing equipment data, facilitating interoperability or preparing artificial intelligence projects with guarantees.
The AOC and the Local World Data Space
The Local World Data Space aims to help local entities make better use of data through shared criteria, models, services and solutions.
In this context, metadata is an essential piece. Without metadata, there is no useful inventory. Without useful inventory, it is difficult to govern data. And without data governance, it is difficult to move towards smarter, more secure, and more proactive services.
The AOC Consortium, in collaboration with provincial councils, county councils, Localret and other local actors, can contribute to facilitating common models and tools that help city councils better describe the data they already have.
This is especially relevant for small municipalities, which need simple, proportionate and shared solutions.
Explain the data so you can trust it
Metadata may seem like a technical detail, but it is a basic condition for trusting data. It helps us know what we have, where it is, who knows it, how it is updated, what quality it has, how it can be used and what guarantees it needs. That is why metadata is much more than a description. It is a tool for preserving knowledge, reducing errors, improving transparència, facilitate interoperability and prepare new uses of the data.
Because when we explain data better, we can use it better. And when we use it better, we can provide better public services.
