Report on Eighth Open Forum on Metadata Registries, Berlin, 11-14 April 2005 Rachel Heery UKOLN, University of Bath DCMI Registry WG meeting, Madrid, September 14 2005

Eighth in series… First open forum in Berkeley, 1997 http://pueblo.lbl.gov/~olke/EPA/Workshop/ Disparate communities More convergence but…. Emphasis on ISO 11179

Family of ISO 11179 standards ISO JTC1/SC32 chair Bruce Bargmayer ISO 11179 Metadata Registries ISO 20943 MDR content consistency ISO 20944 MDR interoperability and binding http://metadata-standards.org ISO TC 37/SC 4 Standardisation of principles, methods and applications relating to terminology: chair Christian Galanski

Extended Metadata Registry (XMDR) Collaborative, Interagency Effort to Extend ISO/IEC 11179 Semantics Management Capabilities Sponsors & Participants: EPA, EEA, USGS, DOD, NCI, Mayo Clinic Adapt & Adopt Emerging Semantic Technologies Help Harmonize Related Metadata Standards Produce Design for Next Generation ISO/IEC 11179 Registries Propose Revisions for ISO/IEC 11179 Parts 2 & 3, Edition 3 Test & Demo Extended 11179 Capabilities in a Reference Implementation Establish Best Practices for Semantic Web & Semantics Based Computing Collaborative, Interagency effort to Extend the Semantics Management Capabilities of ISO/IEC 11179 Test and Demonstrate Extended Capabilities with a Reference Implementation Serve as a Design for Operational 11179 Registries Focuses on Extending Classification and Terminology Aspects Specified in 11179 Part 2 Adapting and Adopting Useful Emerging Technologies Result of Work will be Draft Documents that Propose Revisions for ISO/IEC 11179 Parts 2 and 3 as Version 3 Additionally, the Reference Implementation (RI) Prototype will Help Resolve Issues of How to Register, Manage, and Interrelate Complex Metadata Standards Research, Develop, Evaluate, Adapt, Extend, & Demonstrate Techniques and Technologies for Semantics Based Computing Facilitate Early Adoption of These Technologies Acknowledgement: Sam Chance, US Dept of Defence

XMDR Project Goals Extend Capabilities of 11179 Metadata Registries to Register Complex Metadata Structures (Concept Systems, Terminologies) Ontologies, Graphs, Taxonomies, Thesauri, … Extend Capabilities of 11179 Metadata Registries to Record Correlations and Interrelations Between Concept Systems and Data (e.g., Data Elements, Permissible Values & Value Domains) Concept Systems Themselves http://xmdr.org

XMDR Liaison Activities OMG Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM) W3C Semantic Web Best Practices and Deployment Working Group Ecoterm EU Joint Research Center (EDEN-IW) National Science Foundation (Ecoinformatics) SC32/WG2 MetaModel Framework (MMF) Dept. Homeland Security …….. Can we collaborate?

Other highlights Gerard Budin: metadata interoperability between learning and cultural diversity management Klaus-Dirk Smitz: on (lack of ) cultuural diversity of icons in user interfaces Presentations available from http://berlinopenforum.de/download.html

Personal impressions Little mention of ‘vocabularies’ or ‘schemas’ - emphasis on data elements – Focus on interworking between databases Would be interesting to explore role of ‘data concept’ in context of metadata properties Little real impact of Semantic Web technologies (some mention of use of URIs as identifiers) Main players in ISO 11179 are US government agencies….