Abstract: An exemplary method for searching data includes receiving a search query comprising a conceptual metadatum parameter and contextual metadata parameters, locating a first set of instance documents containing a first contextual metadatum of the contextual metadata, filtering each instance documents in the first set to identify a data element in the instance document that indicates each parameter in the search query, based on definitions internal to the instance document and taxonomies or extensions associated with the instance document, and displaying the filtering results.