A Metadata-Based Approach for Unstructured Document Management in Organizations

Effectively managing documents is a strategic requirement for every organization. Available document management systems (DMSs) often lack effective functions for automatic document management. One reason is that relevant information frequently is conveyed by unstructured documents, whose content cannot be easily accessed and processed by applications. This article proposes a metadata model, the DMSML (Document Management and Sharing Markup Language) to enable and to ease unstructured document management by supporting the design of DMSs. We argue that the extensive use of this metadata language will render organizational information explicit, promoting information reuse and interoperability in a more profitable way than what is guaranteed by proprietary DMSs. We also briefly depict the design and deployment phases of a Web-based DMS prototype based on DMSML. Our overall intent is to increase the awareness of what managers should account for when considering the possibility of adopting a DMS.