Tools for metadata are
divided in categories based on their operating characteristic and function. Below four categories are distinguished. Intelligent
Intelligent tools extract information from data sets
without the user having to determine it and then seperately record it. Intelligent tools do not perform all documentation. The user has to supply direct information such as abstracts and contact information.
But, the possibilities of doing so, depends on the function of the tool.
Form based
Tools which are form-based provide the user an interface which guides the user through the documentation
process. These tools in general provide online-help, and help users by offering picking-lists in a couple of forms. These things indicate the optional and mandatory elements to search information.
ASCII and word processor templates
ASCII templates are simple to use, and no GIS software or other specialized software is needed. These tools aren't tools per se; instead an existing text editor and word
processor is used to edit these template documents which contain all or most of the possible metadata elements and to add text to those elements that are appropriate.
Utilities
Utility tools
include services that aren't used for the primary production of metadata, but it includes services that are used to process it in some form. In this category there are tools to find sets of data, to pre-process
metadata into an consistent format and to validate metadata.