JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Implementing UK LOM Core Lorna M. Campbell & Mark Power CETIS

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Introducing the UK LOM Core UK LOM Core is an application profile of the IEEE Standard for Learning Object Metadata. Initially developed by CETIS and Learning and Teaching Scotland with input from CETIS Metadata SIG and UKOLN. Aims to identify common practice and provide guidelines for metadata implementers, creators and users. Optimised for UK educational communities.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 About the IEEE LOM Standard 65 simple data elements. Additional container elements. Divided into 9 categories: general, lifecycle, meta-metadata, technical, educational, rights, annotation, classification.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Describing LOM elements All simple elements are described by a value space. A value space is typically free text, a vocabulary or a reference to another standard e.g. ISO Language Codes A vocabulary is a recommended list of appropriate values. Standard defines vocabularies for certain elements. Implementers may also add their own vocabularies.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Semantic interoperability Implementers must interpret and use LOM vocabularies appropriately and consistently… …and must choose vocabularies that are appropriate and meaningful to their community of users. Consistent use of metadata elements and controlled vocabularies is referred to as semantic interoperability. Essential for efficient resource description and discovery.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Implementation and conformance Implementing the LOM can be problematic. Not all elements need to be used. A LOM instance that contains no value for any of the LOM data elements is a conforming instance. Can be difficult to know which elements to use. If communities use different elements and vocabularies it will be difficult to share and reuse resources.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Application profiles Instantiations of metadata elements and vocabularies used by a particular project or community. Schemas which consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespaces, combined together by implementors and optimised for a particular local application. - Rachel Heery and Manjula Patel, Application profiles: mixing and matching metadata schemas, Ariadne 25, September May be a subset, superset or amalgamation. May consist of a machine level binding e.g. xml, rdf… … and/or a textual description of the data model.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 UK LOM Core current status Current draft 0.2, released May scheduled for August / September Based on a comparison of 12+ application profiles and existing common practice. Heavily influenced by CanCore and refers throughout to CanCore v.1.9 Guidelines. Provides guidelines on all LOM elements, recommendations on usage and defines UK vocabularies.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 UK LOM Core URL and URI UK LOM Core documents: UK LOM Core URI: /uklomcore/ /uklomcore/

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 UK LOM Core element set 18 simple data elements are mandatory. Must be used. 23 additional elements are optional (recommended). Should be used where possible. All remaining elements are optional May be used where appropriate. Developers should implement the entire LOM scheme, to ensure interoperability with other application profiles.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Mandatory elements Must be used. 1. General: identifier, title, language, description. 2. Lifecycle: contribute. 3. Meta-metadata: identifier, contribute, schema, language. 4. Technical: location. 6. Rights: copyright and other restrictions, description.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Optional (recommended) Should be used where possible. 1. General: keyword. 2. Lifecycle: version. 3. Technical: format, size. 5. Educational: interactivity type, learning resource type, interactivity level, semantic density, intended end user role, context, typical age range, difficulty, description, language. 6. Rights: cost. 8. Annotation: entity, date, description. 9. Classification: purpose, taxon path.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Educational elements All educational elements are Optional (recommended). Educational elements and vocabularies are not widely used and their application is not well understood. Until the vocabulary for this element is used more widely by educators it will remain relatively obscure and therefore can not be mandatory. Further work is required to develop an understanding of this element and its common usage. Usage is recommended so we can learn more about the application of these elements.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 UK LOM Core application profiles Dont expect many implementers to use UK LOM Core as is. Users are encouraged to build application profiles based on the UK LOM Core. Inclusion of all mandatory elements should ensure basic interoperability. Existing application profiles: JISC Exchange for Learning (X4L) Programme COLA Assessment Item Application Profile The RDN / LTSN The JISC / LTSN Connect Teaching and Learning Portal

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: learningResourceType vocabulary Wide agreement that LOM Learning Resource Type vocabulary is unsuitable. exercise, simulation, questionnaire, diagram, figure, graph, index, slide, table, narrativeText, exam, experiment, problemStatement, selfAssessment, lecture. Vocabulary mixes material form and educational purpose. Also issues relating to granularity and what is a learning object. No clear agreement as to what to replace this vocabulary with.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: learningResourceType vocabulary Replace LOM vocab with Dublin Core Type vocab. collection, dataset, event, image, interactive resource, service, software, sound, text, physical object. Pros: simple, inclusive and interoperable. Cons: too simple, doesnt differentiate sufficiently between types, doesnt aid searching.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: learningResourceType vocabulary Create single simple vocab based on RDN/LTSN LearningResourceType vocab that includes form and educational purpose. Pros: a practical solution that will simplify metadata implementation, creation and searching. Cons: should implementation issues drive vocab development? How do we agree on terms for this vocab? Danger of holding up RDN/LTSN work.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: learningResourceType vocabulary Use namespaces to include multiple vocabularies including DC Type, RDN/LTSN LearningResourceType, RDN/LTSN EducatorResourceType and RDN/LTSN AdditionalFormatDescriptors. Pros: extensive and inclusive, namespacing is recommended method of extending LOM vocabs, separates form and purpose. Cons: will complicate metadata implementation, creation and searching, too many terms to choose from, RDN/LTSN AdditionalFormatDescriptors vocab is not yet finalised.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: learningResourceType vocabulary CanCore recommendation: Consistent and effective use of this element may be challenging. In keeping with the approach recommended by the LOM for 5.6 Context ("Suggested good practice is to use one of the values of the value space and to use an additional instance of this data element for further refinement,"), CanCore advises the use of the recommend LOM vocabulary in conjunction with an additional, referenced vocabulary that extends it. (Note that this additional vocabulary value must be referenced in the Source sub-element of the Vocabulary datatype.) This approach allows and implementation to preserve some of semantic interoperability with other implementations through the LOM vocabulary used, while also applying a vocabulary suited to its own, particular purposes.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: learningResourceType vocabulary Current compromise. It is recommended that customised vocabularies should be used in conjunction with the LOMv1.0 vocabulary to facilitate interoperability with other applications. This follows the LOM recommendations for element 5.6 Educational. Context: Suggested good practice is to use one of the values of the value space and to use an additional instance of this data element for further refinement. 10 UK and European Type and Learning Resource Type vocabularies listed: RDN/LTSN LOM Application Profiles, FERL Metadata Scheme, NLN, Curriculum Online, EGMS, HSLI, FAILTE, EEVL, CELEBRATE, COLA Assessment Item Level Metadata.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: Identifiers Many unresolved issues relating to identifiers. Implementers may choose from a range of persistent, globally unique identifier schemata which include, but are not restricted to, URI, URN, PURL, Handle, DOI, POI, ISSN, ISBN, XRI. In order to facilitate interoperability within distributed environments it is recommended that the chosen scheme is encoded in the form of a URI. For specific examples see UKOLN / CETIS Guidelines for encoding identifiers in Dublin Core and IEEE LOM metadata ieee/identifiers/ ieee/identifiers/

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: Technical.Format Technical.Format demoted from Mandatory to Optional (recommended) between v0.1 and 0.2. May be difficult to identify all components of a learning object. Problematic for large and/or dynamically generated LOs.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: Technical.Format Current guidelines: Use MIME types only. LOM stipulates that the technical data types of all compenents are recorded. For example for a Flash animation in an HTML Web page, repeat this element to encode both 'text/html' and 'application/x-shockwave- flash'. Non digital objects should be recorded as non- digital. If it is not possible to accurately determine the MIME type(s) of an object use application/x- unknown.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: Educational.Context vocabulary Recommended vocabulary is UK Educational Contexts. LOMv1.0: School, higher education, training, other. UKEC: Nursery education, primary, education secondary education, sixth form college, further education, higher education, continuous professional development, vocational, training community, education.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: Educational.Context vocabulary UKEC breaks LOM conformance guidelines by duplicating term higher education. LOM Standard states: If a vocabulary is used that intersects with the LOMv1.0 vocabulary, then only the values not included in this standard should have a source that is not LOMv1.0. This will maximize semantic interoperability for the values that are included in this standard. UKEC must be amended.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: Classification.Purpose.Discipline vocabularies UK LOM Core does not mandate use of classification elements or recommend use of specific Discipline vocabularies. Following vocabularies are provided as examples: National Curriculum 5-14, learndirect Subject Classification (Levels 1-2), Joint Academic Coding System, Dewey Decimal Classification (Summary Levels 1-2). Appears to be demand for further guidelines on classification. Copyright issues associated with some classification vocabularies.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Issues: Bindings The UK LOM Core currently makes no recommendations about bindings. IEEE LOM XML binding still being balloted. IMS BPIG for LOM recommends using the draft IEEE XML binding. IMS has released an XSL transform to aid transition. Ben Ryan (High Level Skills for Industry) currently developing a profile of the draft XML binding for use with UK LOM Core.

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Discussion Is the UK LOM Core useful? If not why not? What support or resources are required to encourage adoption of the UK LOM Core? Should the UK LOM Core become a formal standard? Did you use the UK LOM Core as is, an existing application profile or create your own profile? Bindings?

JISC Joint Programmes Meeting, Brighton, July 2004 Input to UK LOM Core Please forward all comments or queries to: Thank you!