In computer metadata, semantic equivalence is a declaration that two data elements from different vocabularies contain data that has similar meaning. There are three types of semantic equivalence statements:
- Class or concept equivalence. A statement that two high level concepts have similar or equivalent meaning.
- Property or attribute equivalence. A statement that two properties, descriptors or attributes of classes have similar meaning.
- Instance equivalence. A statement that two instances of data are the same or refer to the same instance.