This section is written in mrScriptMetadata (see mrScriptMetadata User's Guide), and defines the question texts, the question types, and the response texts. It also defines information texts such as instructions for respondents or interviewers, as well as any other text (for example, project or page titles) that may need to be translated. All interview scripts must have this section.

When you create a new interview script in UNICOM Intelligence Professional, the default Metadata section looks like this:

en-us is the language, Question is a the context, and label is a the label type. It is not mandatory to specify the language, context, or label type, as defaults will be used if they are not provided. For more information, see Label types, contexts, and translations.

A very simple Metadata section with one categorical question looks like this:

You can define questions in any order in the Metadata section because it is the Routing section that determines the order in which they will be presented. However, if you leave the Routing section empty, questions will be presented in the order they appear in the Metadata section.

When writing metadata statements, you can use almost any layout that you like. However, if you close and reopen an .mdd file in UNICOM Intelligence Professional, you will notice that UNICOM Intelligence Professional reformats (or rehydrates) the script so that it similar to the one shown above. Each component of the question’s definition is placed on a separate line, and indentation is used to show the hierarchy of the definition. In addition, shared list definitions are moved to the top of the script and page statements are moved to the bottom.