Col. Barbour is convinced that IDM makes an important difference to the commander. Agent-based dissemination accelerates the flow of required information to the warfighter and provides support through quick, easy and automated retrieval. This approach frees the user to concentrate on other tasks. He also reports that metadata-based tools allow quick organization, understanding and delivery of a higher percentage of relevant information. Metadata, the language used to describe information, is an important element of IDM, Lawrence J. Levin says.
Metadata are data about data.
As an example, if a long text document contains requested information, recognition agents create a small file with parameters in it. After the file is searched, it is cataloged. From these files, this catalog of metadata files tells transfer agents where to look for data on a given topic. Software robots, which are very customized and extremely small search engines, are instructed to find specific information and post it in a file for ready access. In whatever background material it scans, the robot recognizes sources and reports them to the user.