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About the Initiative

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems.

Mission and Scope

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative provides simple standards to facilitate the finding, sharing and management of information.

DCMI does this by:

• Developing and maintaining international standards for describing resources
• Supporting a worldwide community of users and developers
• Promoting widespread use of Dublin Core solutions

The major characteristics of DCMI as an organization are (the three ‘I’s):

• Independent: DCMI is not controlled by specific commercial or other interests and is not biased towards specific domains nor does it mandate specific technical solutions
• International: DCMI encourages participation from organizations anywhere in the world, respecting linguistic and cultural differences
• Influenceable: DCMI is an open organization aiming at building consensus among the participating organizations; there are no prerequisites for participation

The development and maintenance of a core set of metadata terms (the DCMI Metadata Terms) continues to be one of the main activities of DCMI. In addition, DCMI is developing guidelines and procedures to help implementers define and describe their usage of Dublin Core metadata in the form of Application Profiles. This work is done in a work structure that provide discussion and cooperation platforms for specific communities (e.g. education, government information, corporate knowledge management) or specific interests (e.g. technical architecture, accessibility).

Anyone wishing to participate may do so by simply joining the appropriate mailing list for the activity of interest. The DC-General mailing list is the general forum for community participation and announcements. Feedback can be submitted through the feedback page.

DCMI By-laws

The governance and operation structure of DCMI is formalized through a set of By-laws. For all committees, the membership, responsibilities, selection and appointment process, terms, decision process, communication and documentation, and reporting are laid down.

Organizational Structure

Over the years, DCMI has developed from an informal group of researchers and practitioners with an interest in cross-domain metadata solutions to a more formal organizational structure, with a set of declared operational principles and number of committees that have clear roles and responsibilities in the governance of the Initiative. Learn more

Board of Trustees

The Board of Trustees oversees the activities of the DCMI and its Directorate. It advises the Directorate on strategic issues and allocation of financial resources, contributes to the promotion of the Initiative through liaisons with the public and private sectors and assists in securing support for the Initiative. The current Board members are based in various parts of the world (North America, Europe, Asia, New Zealand) and have a strong mix of backgrounds (libraries, education, information science, commerce, consultancy, international organizations and foundations). Learn more

DCMI Affiliate Program

DCMI Affiliates are national or regional organizations that provide a link between the DCMI as a worldwide activity and the local and regional activities of practitioners. They promote and support the adoption of Dublin Core specifications within their region and help to raise local concerns in the larger global metadata community. Learn more

DCMI Partnership Program

The DCMI Partnership Program is intended for organizations that want to associate themselves with DCMI and provide financial support to DCMI. The program includes options to provide financial support to DCMI as a whole, or to support specific activities or events. Learn more

Community

The DCMI is built on a community of individuals from many different backgrounds and disciplines located in organizations and institutions all over the world. These individuals and organizations committed to building and developing metadata standards, practices, policies and technologies are the foundation of this initiative. Learn more

Contact Information

The DCMI welcomes your feedback, questions or comments about the Initiative, the Dublin Core Element Set and the DCMI web site. Learn more

Policies

The DCMI seeks to attract the individuals and organizations worldwide interested in collaborating on metadata standards as well as the design and development of enabling metadata technologies. To this end, the DCMI has establish the following policies.

• Copyright Statement
• Privacy Statement
• Public License for open source software

About our logo

The DCMI logo consists of a central sphere, representing the core of the Initiative. The inner surrounding spheres represent the original 15 core data elements available in the DCMI Metadata Element Set (ISO standard 15836). The outer spheres represent an interpreted and extended element set.

Banner

The following banner is provided in the GIF file format for use by members of the public who wish to include them on a Web site.

No special permission is required from the DCMI to reproduce this image. However, the banner must be linked directly to the DCMI Web site at <http://dublincore.org/>.

Please let us know if you are using this banner on a web site by sending a message with your name and the URL of the web site to the address listed on the feedback page.