Lessons learned in content architecture harmonization and metadata models

This paper assesses the World Bank’s experiences in defining and harmonizing underlying
content architecture and refining metadata models to make 30 years’ worth of legacy
series content discoverable as parent-child content objects within a publication portal.
Content objects were analyzed and converted to XML to capture structure, meaning, and
relationships within and among objects. Metadata were associated in separately refined
models for parent content objects and their child content objects, in order to create multiple
browse and search strategies for the user. The World Bank will share lessons and challenges
in this endeavor, including the challenges of applying an institutionally based taxonomy
required to express subject matter responsibilities and relationships within the World Bank.