A method for determining metadata propagation generated by an Extract, Transfer, Load (ETL) process. The method may include categorizing metadata given to data sources to generalize the metadata and categorizing the ETL process to generalize the ETL process; defining propagation rules for the generalized metadata and generalized ETL process; and generating metadata for ETL-converted data based on the categorization of the generalized metadata and generalized ETL process, and corresponding ones of the propagation rules.