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Educational Metadata. Paul Miller Interoperability Focus UKOLN P.Miller@ukoln.ac.uk http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/.
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Educational Metadata Paul Miller Interoperability Focus UKOLN P.Miller@ukoln.ac.uk http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ UKOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from JISC and the EU. UKOLN also receives support from the Universities of Bath and Hull where staff are based.
Educational Metadata? • Metadata that might… • Describe resources of value to the curriculum • Provide pedagogic context • Place resources within the curriculum • Contextualise higher level –– or levelless –– resources.
How’s it been done? • Ad hoc • Teacher’s packs, resource centres… • Other standards • MARC, FGDC… • Proprietary solutions • MERLIN, other early MLEs… .
Towards consensus • The range of options is shrinking at last… • Dublin Core • IEEE LOM • IMS • Ariadne • Industry specific solutions • Aviation Industry CBT Committee. { ?
Introducing the Dublin Core • An attempt to improve resource discovery on the Web • now adopted more broadly • Building an interdisciplinary consensus about a core element set for resource discovery • simple and intuitive • cross–disciplinary — not just libraries!! • international • open and consensual • flexible. See www.dublincore.org/
Introducing the Dublin Core • 15 elements of descriptive metadata • All elements optional • All elements repeatable • The whole is extensible • offers a starting point for semantically richer descriptions • Interdisciplinary • libraries, government, museums, archives… • International • available in more than 20 languages, with more on the way...
Introducing the Dublin Core • Title • Creator • Subject • Description • Publisher • Contributor • Date • Type • Format • Identifier • Source • Language • Relation • Coverage • Rights www.dublincore.org/
So… what does Dublin Core offer us? • A set of 15 broad ‘buckets’ • Which can easily be mapped to existing data • Which are sufficiently loose, semantically, that they are acceptable to a large number of communities • Which can act as 15 ‘windows’ into richer resources • Which allow integration — at a high level — of databases, library catalogues, web pages, etc., without needing to catalogue them the same way.
What is it not? • (Necessarily) a replacement for any richer standard • Subject Gateways, National Library of Finland • A detailed set of cataloguing rules • AACR2 • Just about digital resources.
Towards a Standard • Standardising the 15 elements… • CEN Workshop Agreement • Z39.85 approved by NISO • Before ANSI now.
Creator First Name Surname Extending DC (semantic) • Improve descriptive precision by adding sub–structure (subelements and schemes) • Greater precision = lesser interoperability • Should ‘dumb down’ gracefully Element qualifier Value qualifier Affiliation Contact Info Based on a slide by Stu Weibel
Terms & Conditions Description CMS record Extending DC (modularity) • Modular extensibility… • Additional elements to support local needs • Complementary packages of metadata • …but only if we get the building blocks right! Based on a slide by Stu Weibel
DC Metadata Element Set DC–Ed DC–Lib DC– … S.E.P. !!! DC and Interoperability DCMI Registry All Domains Education Libraries etc. GEM eDNA SchoolNet
DC for Education • Long–term adoption of DC in educational sector • GEM (USA) • EdNA (Australia) • SchoolNet (Europe) • DC Education working group established 1999.
Extending DC for Education • Common extensions… • Audience • K–12, FE, etc. • Duration • 23 minutes, 1 module, 1 semester… • Standards • Quality • Very good, of course! • Plus some, used by < 2 projects, declared out of scope.
Extending DC for Education • Working principles… • Is there a need? • Can the need be met with a new value qualifier? • Can the need be met with a new element qualifier? • Can the need be solved by adopting an element from elsewhere? • Only if “No”, add a new element.
Extending DC for Education • The Solution • Add element qualifier to Relation • conformsTo • Adopt from IEEE LOM • Interactivity Type • Interactivity Level • Typical Learning Time • Add new elements • Audience • Standard. See www.dublincore.org/documents/2000/10/05/education-namespace/
Extending DC for Education • Decision of DC Usage Board to be formally announced soon.
IMS, IEEE, etc. • Solutions from ‘proper’ education • Corporate training, formal education • Geared to MLEs, CBT, description of resources created to be educational • Metadata part of a suite of solutions • Content packaging, etc. • Bigger standards • Coming together in IEEE LOM • Successfully balloted recently.
IEEE and DC • DC elements present in LOM • More or less… • MoU and some collaborative working • Not (really) a competition • Solving different parts of the problem • For different people • And a different set of resources • So how do we manage complexity? • And can we define which one to use, when?.