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Harmony and Synthesis. Dan Brickley, ILRT. University of Bristol danbri@bris.ac.uk. Harmony project overview. Who? Dan Brickley, Libby Miller (ILRT) Carl Lagoze (Cornell) Jane Hunter (DSTC) What we’re trying to do: simple vs complex multimedia metadata; ABC;
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Harmony and Synthesis Dan Brickley, ILRT. University of Bristol danbri@bris.ac.uk
Harmony project overview • Who? • Dan Brickley, Libby Miller (ILRT) • Carl Lagoze (Cornell) • Jane Hunter (DSTC) • What we’re trying to do: • simple vs complex multimedia metadata; ABC; • Progress: milestones and successes • Challenges and lessons learned
Project Partners • Instititute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT), University of Bristol • Cornell University, USA (NSF funded) • DSTC (self-funding partner) • common background: metadata, digital images, Dublin Core, XML, RDF, extensibility architectures
Harmony: original goals • Extend Dublin Core for multimedia • Model ‘problematic’ cases • versioning (document workflow) • alternate manifestations (formats, conversions) • content of composite media objects • cross domain: education + media + medicine • Propose cheap common approach
What have we been doing? • “The Harmony collaboration has led to a metadata representational model (aka ontology, vocabulary, schema) and XML/RDF query implementation (query language and database search system) that supports resource discovery applications over multi-media, multi-vocabulary metadata descriptions.”(!)
In a nutshell... Metadata headaches, 1995-1999: “works / manifestations; objects, their depictions and creators; agents, actions, change and versioning...” (everyone knew metadata could get complicated)
Query syntax SELECT ?event, ?type, ?time, ?place FROM http://ilrt.org/discovery/harmony/oai.rdf WHERE (web::type ?event abc::Event) (abc::context ?event ?context) (dc::type ?event ?type) (abc::time ?context ?time) (abc::place ?context ?place) USING web FOR http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# abc FOR http://ilrt.org/discovery/harmony/abc-0.1# dc for http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
Implementation: • Ongoing development of ABC (NSF and DELOS funded workshops) • Testbed collaboration with CIMI • Prototype query language (‘Squish’) • Software: query engine and database • Implementation feeds into ABC model • collaboration focus on metadata model
Implementation(2) • Acronyms: XML, RDF, W3C, DARPA/DAML, MPEG, CIMI, RSS, OAI, DELOS (dig-lib and beyond...) • Testbed data: CIMI (museums, images...), OAI archives, RSS feeds • Schema language convergence (XML/RDF Schema, DAML) • opensource’d software: Java, Perl
Example RDF/XML Queries • “Find resources whose dc:format is audio/mp3, whose dc:rights is http://opencontent.org/opl.shtml and which were the output of an abc:CreationEvent involving an agent who works for the department whose home page is http://www.cs.cornell.edu”
Was that a ‘multimedia’ query? • Multi-media content focusses our attention on mixing content from diverse contexts • multi-media content requires combination of descriptive techniques • multi-media data isn’t a world apart • avoid mm-specific technology if we can
Recap: solving which problem? • Q: What has this got to do with multimedia? (“scope creep”?) • A: The scope creep problem! • ABC and Harmony are a response to the ‘metadata wars’ (DC/Education/INDECS/multimedia) • ...and the too many committees problem
ABC in context (1999-2000) • The Metadata wars • domain overlaps • Warwick Framework (myth...) • “Extensibility”, “qualifiers...” • Multimedia (*) metadata
Harmonisation using ABC • Define some ‘abstract, basic concepts’ • A common representational style • Supports vocabulary mixing • XML/RDF encoding for exchange • Focus on events, agents, relationships • MPEG-7 RDF encoding by DSTC • “putting the multi in multimedia”
Current Activity • Ontology Harmonisation w/shop findings • Preparing a 2nd DELOS w/shop • OAI and RDF/RSS interoperability • Refining the model: representing events and states (accurate versioning audit trail) • Track model with implementations
Project Management issues • initial (too) tightly-coupled project plan • Staffing (p/t PI as uk project manager) • UK/US/Australia: timezones, travel • identifying common ground (ABC) • Evaluation: difficult for metadata formats (usage measures? Encourage adoption) • dissemination (groundwork in place)
Lessons for DNER • Metadata modularity is hard • Technology in this area immature • Standards: expensive to invest in; expensive to ignore • Semantic Web and DNER: wider computing industry landscape important • The scope problem may have technical as well as social/political aspects
Lessons(2)... • Data formats not protocols; schemas not RPCs • OAI and RSS 1.0, the two largest initiatives in this tradition, both developed with Harmony involvement, are maturing fast. Cheap technology. • Tech complexity relates to staffing issues (file formats vs protocols)