1 Educational Metadata Paul Miller Interoperability Focus UKOLN U KOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (J ISC ) of the Further and Higher Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from J ISC and the EU. U KOLN also receives support from the Universities of Bath and Hull where staff are based.

2 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.

3 How’s it been done? Ad hoc Teacher’s packs, resource centres… Other standards MARC, FGDC… Proprietary solutions MERLIN, other early MLEs….

4 Towards consensus The range of options is shrinking at last… Dublin Core IEEE LOM IMS Ariadne Industry specific solutions –Aviation Industry CBT Committee. { ?

5 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

6 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

7 Title Creator Subject Description Publisher Contributor Date Type Format Identifier Source Language Relation Coverage Rights Introducing the Dublin Core

8 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.

9 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.

10 Towards a Standard Standardising the 15 elements… CEN Workshop Agreement Z39.85 approved by NISO –Before ANSI now.

11 Extending DC (semantic) Improve descriptive precision by adding sub–structure (subelements and schemes) –Greater precision = lesser interoperability Should ‘dumb down’ gracefully Creator First Name Surname Contact Info Affiliation Based on a slide by Stu Weibel Element qualifierValue qualifier

12 Extending DC (modularity) Modular extensibility… Additional elements to support local needs Complementary packages of metadata …but only if we get the building blocks right! DescriptionCMS record Terms & Conditions Based on a slide by Stu Weibel

13 DCMI Registry DC and Interoperability All Domains DC Metadata Element Set EducationLibrariesetc. DC–EdDC–LibDC– … GEMeDNASchoolNet S.E.P. !!!

14 DC for Education Long–term adoption of DC in educational sector GEM (USA) EdNA (Australia) SchoolNet (Europe) DC Education working group established 1999.

15 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.

16 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.

17 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 education-namespace/

18 Extending DC for Education Decision of DC Usage Board to be formally announced soon.

19 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.

20 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?.