wiki:Brent/EduCause/Higher_Education_Metadata_Workshops

<!> These are my raw notes taken on my localized MoinMoin? wiki on the eXe laptop, then transferred here. Having your own local wiki is the only way to fly at these things, plus you look really cutting edge as well ;-) I'll try to condense at some point into a set of observations about what I learnt about metadata and what impact this day's discussions had on my thinking about metatada and the eXe.

Notes on the Educause Higher Education Metadata Workshops

Date(2005-04-05T10:04:28Z)?


Higher Education in a Global Context

John Mason

LOM-DCMI-IMS (http://metadatafaq...) didn't quite get this url, sorry.

http://www.cetis.ac.uk/metadatafaq ? -- DJM

Wine Bottle metaphor: content=wine, container=bottle, metadata=label

metadata frameworks

METS - metadata exchange transmission standard (http://www.loc.gov/standards/mets/)

SC36 http://mdlet.jtc1sc36.org/ - next generation metadata standard; first part of standard needs to be a framework. leveraging off of LOM and Dublin Core approaches. LOM group has not commenced any work on existing standard. standardization is an ongoing process:

  • aimed at achieving consensus
  • matching stakeholder reqs to solutions
  • requirind maintenance, revision & updates
  • drives innovation

DCMI http://dublincore.org

more elements added (audience, accessibility)

DC-Kernel WG http://dublincore.org/groups/kernel/

proposed terms: who, what where when

IEEE LTSC

LOM data model

XML Binding (in ballot)

RDF Binding (mid 2005)

Accessibility Metadata

  • defined in terms of abilities (matching resources to needs &/or preferences)
  • IMS AccessForALl
  • Dublin Core (dc:Accessibility)

W3C

  • semantic web (RDF, OWL)

SCORM

  • a market winner (widespread global adoption, esp. corporate training)
  • reusable learning content - 'Units of Learning' (SCOs & SCAs; profiles LOM & adds mandatory info)
  • not really a standard, collection of guidelines
  • 3 main SCORM books (CAM, RTE, Sequencing & Navigation)
  • an implementation model

Challenges

  • accomodating user requirements
  • developing stakeholder appreciation for role & scope
  • maximizing benefits for adopting existing standards
  • achieving and maintianing interoperability
  • working with an agreed framework
  • working with higher education stakeholders

http://reusable learning.org/

http://www.scormplayer.com/


Towards a New Zealand Education Sector Architecture Framework

Mark Horgan

ESAF Educational Sector Architectural Framework

projects:

  • data modelling, roles and responsibilities (ESDM)
  • metadata schema (ESMA)
  • integration services (ESIS)
  • authentication / authorisation (ESAA)
  • federated search (ESFS)

Data Roles and Models

custodianship of data? who is responsible?

Metadata Schema

uses Dublin Core - DC-ed

single authentication system

working with MAMS system for authentication


Metadata Research Outputs

Debbie Campbell

new types of annotation:

  • provenance
  • annotation (forms a type of peer review; see: NSDL in USA)
  • accessibility
  • co-locating - ability to find related information in easy manner. JISC: linking research.

peer review is current "standard" for academic research.

OAI protocol - metadata harvesting?

how will universities create metadata around research outputs?

generating metadata:

  • citations
  • e-portfolios
  • automatic generation of metadata

Generation Software:

  • improvement (JHOVE)
  • recombination -

ARROW discovery service; national resource discovery across the australian higher education sector.


Metadata and Standards Development

Maxine Brodie - Macquarie University Library

what's the business case?

why have standards?

  • safety
  • quality
  • compatability
  • cost reduction
  • technology transfer

eliminating avoidable costs:

  • information seeking
  • interpretation/decision making
  • integration/re-organization
  • information reporting

what is the context? ie. Library as context ...

  • provides clues to controlled vocabulary, structures, syntax and rules.
  • economies of scale

principles of metadata creation:

  • control
  • scale - assumes large quantity of 'data'.
  • relevence
  • heterogeneity
  • homogeneity
  • re-use

increasing view on semantic web that metadata is collaborative exercise.

metautopia or metacrap:

  • people lie
  • people are lazy
  • people are stupid
  • mission impossible - know thyself?
  • schemas aren't neutral
  • metrics influence result
  • there's more than one way to describe something

Doctorow, 2001


Metadata in Practice: Defining an Education Sector Metadata Schema for New Zealand

Adrienne Kebbel & Mark Horgen

National Digital Strategy is also establishing a national elearning infrastructure.

centralised repository of national and cultural resources

finding, using, administering digital resources

XML - RDF -> DUBLIN CORE [DC-Lib DC-Ed DC-Gov]

NB: Dublin Core has organisational specificity(?) or is it just some kind of namespacing? DC-Ed - look into this.

Metadata Schema Deliverables

  • XML schema for ESMS
  • ESMS shared vocabulary

TeRG - Tertiary Elearning Reference Group


Metadata and Institutional Repositories: Managing Multiple Schemata

Geoff Payne - Monash University

ARROW project (http://arrow.edu.au/) - vehicle for an institutional repository in universities.

4 partners: monash, univ of new south wales, Swinburne Uni of Technology, National Library of Australia

What is an Institutional Repository?

  • managed collection of digital objects
  • institutional in scope
  • consistent data and metadata
  • enable discovery by communities of practice for whom objects are of interest
  • read, input, export objects to facilitate sharing
  • respect access constraints
  • sustainable over time
  • facilitating preservation

Technical Issues:

  • Dublin Core - insufficiently granular
  • LOM - not good for bibliographic metadata
  • needed to preserve metadata already existing

Strategy:

  • support metadata schemata to suit individual data models
  • no requirement for all metadata to be shoehorned into a single schema

Two paths to interoperable metadata Godby, Smith and Childress. 2003.

Open Source Repository Software

http://www.soros.org/openaccess/software/

Fedora Consortium


Metadata in the ASPR Project

Kevin Bradley

Australian Partnership for Sustainable Repositories

3 projects:

  • MAMS
  • ARROW
  • ASPR

NB: again Fedora project comes up.

principles of sustainability:

  1. for the user
  1. enduring
  1. accessible
  1. commitment by the institution.

Types of Material:

  • research output
  • digitised content
  • "Born Digital" material (vital to long term research)

Sustainable Formats:

  • image and sound (BWF .wav, TIFF)
  • text (XML)

Metadata decisions:

  • mandate certain fields in MODS
  • D-Space and extending Dublin Core
  • adhere to acknowledged standards

Sustainability:

  • sustainability of raw data
  • sustainability of access to meaning
  • economics of sustainability
  • economics of participation
  • value of data
  • tools, software and sustainability

metadata is critical to sustainability. preservation metadata

dissemination of knowledge and appropriate software is the aim of the project.


Case Studies

Universitas 21 Project

Tony Koppi

http://www.lrc3.unsw.edu.au:8040/

managers commissioned the development of software to:

  • identify unpublished learning and teaching resources within U21
  • enable them to be shared and reused
  • make efficiency gains
  • limiting reinventing the wheel
  • raise quality by reusing the best available

Learning Resource Catalogue, now open to all HE Institutions

Learning Tasks
Learning Resources Learning Supports

Description of LOs based on IMS metadata.

Submitting LO to LRC3:

Required Fields | Secondary Fields | Technical | Educational | Visibility

Sharing learning designs:

  • no reward, unlike research
  • awareness of learning objects and reusability
  • feel obliged to create own course
  • nothing as good as own creation
  • saving time actually means more work

Swinburne's LILO

Derek Whitehead - Swinburne University of Technology

simplified version of LOM. Driven by needs of Content management system. To support digital objects used in CMS/LMS.

people require very simple interface to adding metadata. granularity issues of metadata applied to learning objects. manual application of metadata is impractical for ephemeral Learning Objects (?)


Experiences in the Management of Content at Griffith University. Metadata in Practice: Developing Metadata for the University's Digital Collections

Anne Loria - Griffith University

using Harvest Road Hive

looked at existing metadata schemas.

CanCore?: a subset of LOM

implement full metadata schema but use only elements required (via interfaces). trouble fitting some wanted metadata into existing schemas. Copyright requirements - major impact across Australia.

International LOM survey report - http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/archive/00000403/

  • underutilized elements
  • innapropriate use

control vocabularies by using drop-down lists.

VCARD:

  • suggested by LOM for contributor details
  • vcard format though is generally ignored
  • not XML encoded
  • new standard? (FOAF?)

Thesauri & Taxonomies:

  • images
  • medical
  • rights
  • statement
  • ownership
  • description
  • date of expiry

Art images, customized VRA-Core Schema

Using Hive to manage ePrints. OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting)

Learning Objects:

  • determine metadata requirements
  • LOM
  • Feedback from stakeholders

Principles:

  • shouldn't use metadata elements for other purposes
  • who will create metadata?
  • describe resource, not intended usage.
  • data entry: efficient/intuitive