Affiliation:
1. Inha University, Korea
Abstract
Web business systems, the most popular application of hypermedia, typically include a lot of hypermedia documents (hyperdocuments), which are also called Web pages. These systems have been conceived as an essential instrument in obtaining various beneficial opportunities for CRM (customer relationship management), SCM (supply chain management), e-banking or e-stock trading, and so forth (Turban et al., 2004). Most companies have made a continuous effort to build such systems. As a result, today the hyperdocuments in the organizations are growing explosively. The hyperdocuments employed for business tasks in the Web business systems may be referred to as organizational hyperdocuments (OHDs). The OHDs typically play a critical role in business, including the forms of invoices, checks, orders, and so forth. The organization’s ability to adapt the OHDs rapidly to ever-changing business requirements may impact on business performance. However, the maintenance of the OHDs increasing continuously is becoming a burdensome task to many organizations; managing them is as important to economic success as is software maintenance (Brereton et al., 1998). An approach to solve the challenge of managing OHDs is to use metadata. Metadata are generally known as data about data (or information about information). Concerning this approach, this article first reviews the previous studies and discusses perspectives desirable to manage the OHSs and then provides metadata classification and elements. Finally, this article discusses future trends and makes a conclusion.