New guide to labelling, rating and filtering electronic data
The European Commission's Open Information Interchange (OII) service has just published a guide to labelling of electronic data, and rating and filtering as a function of labelling. The guide discusses the relationship between these three concepts before looking at each individually. It then concludes with a brief consideration of the implications for searching. Labelling is a means of identifying the contents of an electronic data file without having to open it. The label should provide a user with enough information to decide whether to open the file. Rating provides a means of assigning a value to the data file, based on certain defined assumptions or criteria. Details of the rating of a data file may be stored on a label. Filtering provides a method to exclude or select sets of data files which have certain properties, perhaps based on the results of rating. Again, filtering may be done using only information on the labels of the data files, for example a rating. The guide looks at different systems and standards for labelling, rating and filtering available, discussing the uses and limitations of such systems.