Canadian Culture Online (CCO) Policy, Metadata Strategy and Development of a Matrix of Metadata Elements

The Canadian Culture Online policy is a three-year strategy designed to facilitate the development of, and ensure access to, digital cultural content on the Internet. As part of this strategy, appropriate standards are needed to allow content to be developed & used in a seamless, meaningful, & transparent way that is compatible with similar work done elsewhere. In this regard, this document presents a metadata strategy & a matrix of metadata elements for digital cultural resources. It sets out the key principles governing the strategy & matrix development, describes the rules used for the development of the matrix of metadata elements, and presents the complete matrix in a table consisting of five sub-matrices that cover elements applicable to all digital cultural resources (such as title, subject, & date) and to additional elements if the resource is a learning resource, an audio-visual work, a part of a composite work or collection, or if the resource supports rights management.