Meta matters

Integrated metadata strategies

hgalatis — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 02:59:48 +0000

A recent report, Metadata for digital libraries: state of the art and the future directions, by JISC Tech Watch looks at the importance of metadata in a networked environment. A suggested barrier to the emergence of a single standard is the complex metadata requirements of digital objects. For example there is need for descriptive metadata, administrative metadata, structural metadata and right management metadata. The author suggests the integration of the relevant standards, all based on XML architectures, can be combined to provide a coherent metadata strategy. Some of us have already been adopting such strategies to meet metadata requirements of project needs.

Metadata and connections

hgalatis — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:36:37 +0000

For a long time now we have been using metadata to describe and classify resources so that others looking for then could find them. Our objective has been to create rich databases of quality resources, describe them well and provide both browse and search mechanisms for the end user to browse and search for resources around their interests. This model has served us well for over a decade now but as we know nothing stays static, technologies are improving and new tools and applications pop up daily.

The internet has enabled us to keep in touch with colleagues and friends all over the world – our connections are not purely social — we find that we can effectively communicate via the internet for professional purposes. As online beings we build online profiles and identities – people get to know us based on what we write, what we read, who we know and the networks we belong to. Although we rarely associate metadata with individuals this is exactly what is happening when we engage in online activities. We, human beings, are just as important as resources in the online environment. There is inferred value on the resources we tag, bookmarks we collect and expose to our online networks.

Networks and communities of practice provide us with the means to develop quality online collections of resources – they provide the resources, the subject expertise and the peer review capabilities. What we have to do is streamline who creates what metadata and for what purpose!

Update on Standards Activity

hgalatis — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 02:00:52 +0000

A recently published article, Metadata for Learning Resources: An Update on Standards Activity for 2008, by Sarah Currier provides a snapshot of the current landscape of metadata application and development. The focus is on key international initiatives and what has been taking place over recent years in regards to harmonization, application and developments.Sections covered include:

IEEE LOM: Recent History and Future
Where to for a Next-generation IEEE LOM?
DC-Education AP Vocabularies
DC-Education AP: Singapore Framework
Next Steps for the UK: The JISC LMAP Scoping Study
ISO Metadata for Learning Resources: A Third Standard?

Sarah also informs us of the existence of a separate group, under the auspices of the International Standards Organisation (ISO), interested in improving on the LOM standard. The question is, do we need yet another standard? – it would appear processes are already in place to address community concerns and new approaches to metadata such as web 2.0 and social tagging.

A new application profile to draw on relevant domains

hgalatis — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 05:45:09 +0000

JISC investigate the creation of a new application profile for learning materials.

A metadata scoping study is proposed by Phil Barker, JISC CETIS, that will draw on all relevant domains to identify domain specific issues that could inform managers of learning materials repositories. We can all appreciate that learning materials include a variety of resources including audio files, guides, tutorials, assessment material, web pages, etc. And as Phil alludes the online space is not getting any easier in accommodating all information needs in managing repository content. Rights management along with accessibility issues are the current challenges facing us. The following is the starting list of domains that will be analysed.

• general resource discovery (DC, MARC)
• Education (LOM, context descriptions)
• Accessibility (Access4All)
• Curation / preservation (premis, METS)
• Complex object management (IMS CP, METS, DIDL, OAI-ORE)
• Technical (technical metadata)
• Digital rights (ODRM, XrML)
• Repository management (admin metadata)
• Assessment (IMS QTI metadata)
• Scholarly publishing / citations (OpenURL, SWAP, PRISM?)
• Images (MIX)
• Videos
• Geo-spatial

For more details see Phil’s JSC CETIS blog.

Help DCMI evaluate its website

hgalatis — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 06:14:06 +0000

A survey has been developed asking users for their feedback on the Dublin Core website. The survey seeks to find out how the DCMI site is used by users new to Dublin Core and those who are familiar with Dublin Core and its community.

I encourage you to take a minute and complete the survey so we can all assist in determining how the DCMI site can be improved. The questionnaire will be available till 5 September.

The survey is available at the following URL:

http://www.priority-research.com/survey.php?sid=9492697A75255BD58561B5AAE1827094

Who do you know and how do you find them!

hgalatis — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:25:47 +0000

The prevalence of online networking and collaboration has introduced new challenges for web developers — how do we capture information about people their expertise, interests and needs? Well, there are several options, one can create web pages with embedded personal information, try to locate directories of experts, search for communities of practice and hope for the best or use metadata to describe people and their expertise.

We have used metadata quite effectively for a number of years now to manage collections of resources, push out resources to busy people who haven’t time to search, to share collections and provide access to such collections from multiple access points.

Our next challenge is to capture metadata about people and thus enable the networking and the connections required in our fast changing world.

We are currently working on an innovative project that focuses on social networking and building online communities. In our research for this project we have uncovered a range of schemas available that describe such entities. The list here is not comprehensive but it will give you an idea of what is available and what information one should consider.

Dublin Core Agents Working Group - has identified a draft element set
Friend of a Friend (FOAF) project
Interparty project
indecs
Encoded Archival Context
Functional Requirements for Authority Records – IFLA UBCIM Working Group (FRANAR)
International Standard Party Identifier (ISPI)
vCard
eduPerson
Metadata Authority Description Schema (MADS)

Social tagging — Metadata and web 2.0

hgalatis — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 02:38:30 +0000

The advent of the internet has provided us with a proliferation of online resources but has also presented us with the need to find a mechanism to enable the organisation and discovery of these resources.

DC metadata was developed primarily to assist with the discovery of information and resources. It provided a structure for the description of resources in a consistent manner. Metadata over the years has been created not by experts such as librarians and cataloguers but by people in different professions and backgrounds such as teachers, web developers, authors and anyone interested in managing online resources and services.

More recently, Web 2.0 technologies and applications have enabled the way for the prominence of ’social tagging’. That is tagging of resources by end users. The question facing many online service managers now is how can aspects of this informal process be formalized and utilized for resource discovery.

At the recent DC-2006 Conference in Mexico on 6 October 2006, a Special session was held on Social Networks - Tagging and DC metadata. Following on from that session a number of other activities have taken place. Liddy Neville has set up DCMI Social Tagging Community

The DCMI Social Tagging Community is for those who are interested in investigating how the increasingly common practice of informally tagging resources, known as a process of social tagging, can contribute to the goals of the DCMI. It is clear that there is a lot of work being done that might, if slightly formalised, contribute to the quantum of DC metadata in useful ways. It is also of interest to see how tagging can point to terms that are in common use that may be of interest to those developing ontologies, thesauri and controlled vocabularies. There may be other aspects of the practice of tagging that can contribute in some way to DCMI activities.

It is not clear how tagging relates to the activities and practices of the Dublin Core general community, or how tags relate to other metadata, but these are considered interesting questions worthy of discussion.

The Community has a website at: http://dublincore.org/groups/social-tagging/.

A wiki at: http://dublincore.org/taggingwiki/

An email list: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?SUBED1=dc-social-tagging&A=1

International Conference on Dublin Core and Metadata Applications

hgalatis — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 04:20:48 +0000

The annual DC conference this year was held in Mexico, 3-6 October and the theme was Metadata for Knowledge and Learning. Presentations are now available from the conference website. The main focus of the presentations is around vocabularies and abstract models. Stuart Weibel’s blog provides an excellent overview and discussion on key issues. The discussion on and importance of abstract models can be summarised by the following from Stu’s blog:

…we talk less about metadata standards and schemas, and more about abstract model, syntax, metadata vocabularies, and application profiles. Success is in the details, and there are lots of them to manage. It can’t be done without common underlying models.

A presentation that left an impression on me was by the DOTEINE Research Group ( University Carlos III of Madrid) on Development of a controlled vocabulary for learning objects’ functional description in an educational repository. The presentation outlines the key issues and tasks that need to be addressed in undertaking the task of developing an application profile.

Metadata at education.au

hgalatis — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 02:32:16 +0000

This posting was prompted by Judy O’Connell’s blog entry on “Building an education strategy for metadata”. I agree whole heartedly with the sentiments of the entry and as another information management professional I appreciate the enormous benefits derived from the use of metadata.

We at education.au (national ICT agency) have had an involvement with metadata since the mid nineties. You may ask how and why. As the managers of EdNA Online we needed a tool to enable us to manage and deliver online resources and services to the education and training community in Australia.

Funded by the national, state and territory governments, EdNA Online is a national gateway to educational resources and services. Working collaboratively with our stakeholders (the education and training community) we developed the EdNA metadata standard which is based on the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES). Our vision was for the Standard to be used by all education sectors in Australia - that is schools, Vocation and Technical Education and higher education.

The EdNA standard was embraced by the education departments which enabled us to harvest their resources and share them nationally with everyone via EdNA Online.

In working with metadata over the years we have come to realize that one metadata standard cannot meet the various needs of different organisations and different projects. What we find has been taking place, in recent years, is that projects and educational organisations have been developing their own metadata schemas (based on International standards) better known as Metadata Application Profiles.

The EdNA Metadata Standard, Dublin Core and IEEE LOM v1.0 can be the base schemas for such profiles.

The EdNA Metadata Standard was first published in 1998 and has not been updated since 2002. In its current form it has limitations and does not meet well the emerging needs of many educational projects. The AICTEC Metadata Reference Group is cognizant of the fact that one educational metadata schema cannot meet all information management needs. What is needed by organisations is assistance in determining specific metadata needs – what metadata to select from what standards and how to implement a metadata system.

We too at education.au, in managing educational services, have created metadata to manage and deliver new services such as the EdNA news headlines and the events calendars. Work is also under way to create application profiles to manage the various collections of EdNA resources.

Currently we use the EdNA Metadata Standard to deliver resources, from the EdNA repository, to the Government Education Portal and over 12 other educational websites. Metadata enables us to create site structures where resources are displayed by topic, deliver headlines by sector and service, and provide metadata search options.

Meta does matter in education!