ANSI/AIIM TR47-2004

This report urges creation of a technical specification for applying enterprise-determinedidentifying metadata to any kind of electronic information in any media, such that the metadatacan be used to find and manage the information according to enterprise policies and processes.The metadata association is formatted in a standard way for conveyance with the informationand for display. This formatted association between information and its metadata would be builtinto commercial-off-the-shelf software products of all kinds, and would work in conjunction withenterprise-created and managed metadata repositories. Because the tag is so closely tied toenterprise metadata management processes, the concept is a new, integrated infrastructureapproach to information management within an enterprise. As such, its direct benefits are inevidentiary management, security management, privacy management, content management,knowledge management, legal and regulatory satisfaction, intellectual property management,and business process management. The authors believe that the vision, when built intocommercial products and services, will yield extremely significant economic benefits to all kindsof enterprises in all sectors. Although the vision will take several years to realize fully, itpromises a win-win for everyone.