[Sigiii-l] Metadata for development

[Gianluca Miscione]

maybe of interest

best

gianluca miscione

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http://www.epsg.org.uk/dcsg/

A one-day discussion meeting: 12 May 2004
BCS meeting rooms, 11 Mansfield Street, London WIG 9NZ

We believe that people who work professionally with information have a role
to play - and arguably an obligation - in working towards the United Nations
's Millenium Goals for social and economic development. These are goals that
aim to eliminate poverty and improve health outcomes worldwide.

In this discussion workshop we want to explore the potential of metadata -
data that helps to organise other data - in meeting these goals. For
example, how better indexing and retrieval systems can help doctors in
Africa and Asia access expert knowledge on the World Wide Web; indeed, how
the field of development and anti-poverty action itself can be better
organised and referenced. Metadata also promises to play a key role in the
future of government administration and the creation of a truly 'joined up'
health service.

The political context for our discussion and any action plans that come from
it is the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the second session
of which will take place in Tunis in 2005.

The meeting is hosted by the British Computer Society Developing Countries
Specialist Group, and is supported by other BCS groups: the Disability
Group, the Electronic Publishing Specialist Group and some of the Health
Informatics groups. It also has the support of the Learning and Teaching
Support Network's Information and Computing Sciences division (LTSN-ICS).

Meanwhile, please view the Resources and Reading page, where there are links
to a number of background papers for you to download and read, some of them
written expressly to support this meeting; plus two audio recordings of
talks.

If you have comments about the subject matter of this discussion, you can
add them to our comments page.

The WSIS-focus link will take you to the legacy site that was created to
support our January 2003 meeting on Information Literacy and the World
Summit for the Information Society.

Brian Layzell: treasurer of BCS-DCSG and chair of BCS Disability Group
John Lindsay: chair of BCS-DCSG
Conrad Taylor: secretary of BCS Electronic Publishing SG