Managing The Change And Growth Of A Metadata-Based System

Regulations governing the pharmaceutical industry require extensive metadata to support datasets and displays when submitting a New Drug Application (NDA) to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In two previous pa-pers we outlined the metadata architecture needed to support a large and complex project as well as how the meta-data is used throughout the life cycle of a project. We also demonstrated how well-designed and easily-accessible metadata improves work flow, efficiency, and project management throughout the life cycle of a project. This paper builds on the previous two papers and discusses lessons we have learned as the scope, user base, and complexity of our metadata systems have increased. Topics include: metadata design; user interface; developing tools to access the metadata; repurposing metadata throughout the life cycle of a project; and software development and maintenance issues. These topics should be of interest to those who are just starting to develop metadata-based systems as well as those who have implemented such systems and are being challenged and perhaps a bit beleaguered by their maintenance. Organization A simple approach to preaching the gospel of metadata would be to present a list of do's and don'ts based on our experience. This is easy to write, readily rendered in PowerPoint, and reasonably valuable to programmers an