Metadata for Heterogeneous Digital Assets

1. Metadata for Heterogeneous Digital Assets Fellow: Yong-Mi Kim Faculty Mentors: Judy Ahronheim and Lynn Johnson

2. Presentation Overview • Background • DAMS • Assets • Metadata • DAMS metadata issues • Dentistry • Education

3. Background • Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) at U-M • Partnership • CARAT/Rackham IT Fellow • Media Union Living Lab • Vision (Living Lab) • Build an environment where assets are easily searched, shared, edited and repurposed in the academic model

4. Who are the partners … • School of Education • School of Dentistry • School of Literature, Science and Art (Language Resource Center) • School of Nursing • School of Pharmacy • School of Social Work • Information Technology Central Services • University Libraries

5. Digital Asset Management System • Tool for organizing digital media assets for storage and retrieval • Components • Repository • Database • User interface • Workflow • Not yet commonly used in higher education

7. Assets • Instructional videotapes • Instructional software • Slide collections (art, medicine, …) • Videotapes of invited speakers • Videotapes of student performances • Fieldwork audio and video • Web-based instructional materials

8. Assets in the university • Academic units and assets • Create large amounts of perishable intellectual property • Preservation and access usually handled by outside agents (academic publishers, libraries) • Small subset handled by outside agents • Other assets preserved in ad-hoc manner -> Assets not available for reuse

10. Metadata • “data about data” • “A cloud of collateral information around a data object” • “hooks” by which information objects can be extracted from or found within a repository • Example: Mirlyn

11. DAMS metadata issues • Heterogeneous collections with domain-specific description needs, vocabularies • Metadata entry will be handled by non-specialists • Granularity of description v. effort • Consistency v. flexibility • Controlled vocabulary v. free text • Enable search • Across subject areas • Over time • Provenance

12. Application profile • Proposed by Heery & Patel (2000), UKOLN • Combine elements from different metadata schemas • Define private (local) elements • Optimized for a particular local application • Reflects the fact that particular project needs cannot be fully met by a standard “as is”

13. Dekkers (2001): Define metadata requirements Select most appropriate existing standard metadata element set Where possible, use standard elements for locally required elements, possibly narrowing semantics and adding local rule and vocabularies Define remaining elements in private namespace DAMS Pilot Dublin Core selected as basis Assess state of legacy metadata Construct mappings Select appropriate existing standard metadata set for domain-specific elements not covered by Dublin Core Define remaining elements in private namespace Process

14. Title Author Subject Description Publisher Contributor Date Resource Type Format Resource identifier Source Language Relations Coverage Rights Dublin Core

15. Legacy metadata • Metadata needs of four partnership units surveyed: • LS&A - Language Resource Center • Education - Mathematics Teaching and Learning to Teach project • Pharmacy • Dentistry

16. Legacy metadata status • LS&A - legacy metadata available online; can be exported with some modification • Education - legacy metadata exists but is scattered; structure does not allow easy search and retrieval • Pharmacy - metadata needs to be extracted or generated from objects • Dentistry - some legacy metadata available

17. Metadata in DAMS • Descriptive metadata • Dublin Core • General, simple metadata standard intended for use by non-specialists • IMS • Metadata standard focusing on educational uses • Metadata automatically collected by Ancept system • File size, file name, etc.

18. UM_Core • Minimal level of description for DAMS assets • Elements from Dublin Core • Local elements Search across collections done through UM_Core elements

19. DC_Title DC_Creator DC_Subject UM_SecondarySubject DC_Description DC_Publisher DC_Contributor DC_Date DC_Type DC_Format DC_Identifier DC_Source DC_Language DC_Relation DC_Coverage DC_Rights UM_Publisher UM_AlternatePublisher UM_Core elements

20. Dentistry • Assets for pilot • Videos of dental procedures • Oral pathology slides • High-level categories specific for dentistry defined • Metadata schema • Preliminary metadata schema for video • Additional work needed for oral pathology slides • Issues • Controlled vocabularies (e.g., SNODENT) • Incorporating other schema elements (e.g., DICOM)

21. Education • MTLT • Videos • Associated transcripts • Presentations and papers based on above • Issues • Explore using IMS • Identify controlled vocabularies within education • Educate asset producers (faculty)

22. General Lifecycle Metametadata Technical Educational Rights Classification interactivitytype learningresourcetype interactivitylevel semanticdensity intendedenduserrole context typicalagerange difficulty typicallearningtime description language IMS

25. Questions?