Rules for Complex Metadata Mappings

The introduction and definition of rules is an essential step for most cases of creating semantic mappingIn the context of crosswalking, elements in the source schema are explicitly mapped to elements in the target schema during semantic mapping. Related Guide between standards because of complex relationshipsConnections between metadata terms within a vocabulary. These relationships can connect terms by scope, provenance, or other well-defined criteria. that often exist.

To deal with complex mappings (when the mapping from source elementIndividual instance of a metadata label and value pair. For example, "creator: John Doe" is a metadata element. Related Guide to target element is more complex than one-to-one) between standards, we require the introduction of rules.

As an example, consider the case of a source standard having a single element for the address. The target standard may represent the address using multiple elements, such as street address, city, state, zip code, and country. An automated rule could be established to identify certain province or state names, essentially parsing the single element address into its components. Alternatively, a manual rule may also be created, one that specifies that manual intervention is the only method to properly separate the address components.