| Abstract: | The University of North Carolina's Plant Information Center (PIC) is a Web-based scientific learning center that connects students to a virtual herbarium of plant specimens and to a collection of botanical and educational resources. This article introduces PIC and reviews the concept of metadata and its relation to the evolving Web-based educational environment. The emphasis is on PIC's metadata applications, specifically the incorporation, development, and integration of a series of metadata schemas that underlie the project. Attention is also given to PIC's metadata research initiatives and how PIC's metadata architecture can contribute to the design of similar enterprises. |
