Ontology-based Editor for Metadata Documents

Editing metadata for documents in a large collection is a long and menial task. Many metadata schemas exist, among which, of course, Dublin Core, and they are usually only partially compatible to each other. Adopting any of these schemas often requires adopting specific tools for the insertion and editing of metadata that are rigid, do not allow for customization and specialization for the organization needs. In this paper we present g.a.f.f.e. (Generator of Automatic Forms Final Edition), a metadata editor that allows for any each metadata schema considered, to be specified and customized. The metadata input and for the actual interface can to be customized and modified parametrically through the aid of domain and interface ontologies expressed in OWL. g.a.f.f.e. behaves as an independent desktop application as well as an add-in to MS Office applications, allowing for metadata to be stored either as independent OWL files or as properties within the documents themselves.