C.  Indicative lists of metadata items

18.21.        The present section contains the indicative lists of structural and reference metadata items that countries are encouraged to compile as part of their statistics production within the framework for describing the international supply of services. (The issues specifically related to the dissemination of metadata are discussed in chapter 20.) The list of structural metadata provided below stems from the BOP-DSD. The reference metadata are based on the recommendations of MSITS 2010.

18.22.        In the context of SDMX, the term structural metadata refers to identifiers and descriptors of data, such as concepts and attributes of variables, which are essential for discovering, organizing, retrieving and processing statistical data sets. They can be thought of as the “labels” that need to be associated with each data item in order for it to have any meaning.  Reference metadata are of a more general nature and may refer to specific statistical data, to entire data collections or even to the institution that provides the data.

 

In this section:

C.1. Structural metadata: Balance of Payments-Data Structure Definition

C.2. Example of a trade in services time series key, coded according to the Balance of Payments-Data Structure Definition

C.3. Reference metadata

 

Next: D. Metadata standards of international and regional organizations