Printing Introduction to Metadata


Introduction to Metadata



Vivian Lee Ward, National Health Museum

Diane Hillman, Cornell University

Judy Ridgway, ENC / The Ohio State University

Marcia Zeng, Kent State University

John Marquis, University of Southern California


Links

List of controlled vocabularies


List of Current Operational and Proposed Metadata Standards


Recorder: Judy Spicer, ENC/The Ohio State University


The following questions will be answered: What is metadata and why is it valuable? How do the various standards (Dublin Core, IEEE LOM, SCORM, and DOI for example) relate to one another? What metadata standard will best describe your collection? What are the challenges and hurdles to avoid and overcome? What is the relationship between metadata and searching your collection? What is the relationship between metadata and your catalog record display? What is OAI and what are the minimal metadata elements that make your collection harvestable in a meaningful way by NSDL.org?

Notes - Introduction to Metadata

Questions and answers for Introduction to Metadata


Diane Hillmann (DH): The two organizations have agreements. The basics of DC are expressed in IEEE LOM. DC is simpler, somewhat flatter in its abstract model which is where the main distinction lies. Difference is specialization. IEEE LOM is really talking about learning object while DC is more generalizeable. LOM offers much for learning object metadata. Dublin Core is lingua franca. To learn more see the Introduction to Metadata by Pricilla Caplan.


DH--Soon after meeting, within a month.


Judy Ridgway (JR): The vocabularies (you refer to) were for the metadata repository not a taxonomy. The vocabularies that you sent me had to do with evaluations to assess the metadata repository, not to recommend a taxonomy to anybody.

Questioner: It may be time to stop being so abstract with metadata�(missed rest)

DH: We often do not know what taxonomies are being used. DC has the ability to explain what taxonomy or vocabulary you�re using so that other people can know what�s going on. DC is working on a registration that will help with identification of specific taxonomy. So if you�re using some other taxonomy, you need to tell us what it is.


DH: If it is important to have information at that level to describe your objects�use it. Decisions are up to creator. We can help you figure out how to give it to us so that we can spread it to other people.

Why Did ENC choose LOM over DC?

JR: It has specific aspects that we use such as the educational description , information about the learner, that doesn�t fit in DC.

DH: Yes, so you would want to use it if you had an overriding pedagogical reason Consider your objects--LOM is very complicated and hard to find out info.


DH: Difficult question. I know that�s one of the issues that the IEEE LOM committee is trying to address, so you should get involved with them.


DH: We�ll pass on the information, including the required fields, but we can�t provide any functionality based on that. Part of the project planning process maybe to only expose certain resources now and some you will expose later. You still want to share data with us, just maybe not all of it yet.


DH: That�s what OAI does. It will be a DC record in an OAI wrapper.


DH: You have to figure out your taxonomy. The key is not that you use the same taxonomy as anybody else but that you explain what taxonomy you are using. Eventually, this thing will scale up enough and there will be services that make connections within those taxonomies based on a semantic understanding of what they are.


Diane: If you want to, and it�s a big business, then do it properly. Look into how you need to do it so that others can reuse it. Make sure you�re going to expose it and maintain it so that others can use it. You can expose several vocabularies. So I would encourage you if you�re doing something very specific then you expose several vocabularies. First thing is to pick a taxonomy. Expose the taxonomy you are using. We will make semantic connections. Key is exposing and maintaining use. Inventing a taxonomy is a big business. You will hate yourself in the morning if do not think it through.

Marcia Zeng (MZ): We just had the DC conference where we talked about such things. Any metadata schema has controlled vocabulary and Best Practice guides with suggestions about what vocabulary to use. We see that right now most people just extract the terms they need (from an existing taxonomy) and tell her (Diane) what you are using. (Explained Green�s Fields thesaurus use.) If you use IEEE LOM then there�s a taxon field that lets you specify the general subject, although it�s different from the subject field. Create a thesaurus for a project IEEE LOM has taxon field that is very general that is different from the subject field�DC has same

Diane: The key is not that you use the same taxonomy as anybody else but that you explain what taxonomy you are using. Eventually, this thing will scale up enough and there will be services that make connections within those taxonomies based on a semantic understanding of what they are. First thing is to pick a taxonomy and tell everybody what you�re using.


DH: I don�t have an answer to that, it�s one of the things we know we must implement but we don�t have a timetable for it. It is very much on the table.


DH: There are a number of metadata schemas for video work with mpeg technical and granularity issues. There is application profiles where you can use parts of one scheme and another not either or.

JR: Isn�t Carnegie Mellon using a schema for digital video? (nobody�s sure what they�re using)

DH: There is actually something called application profiles where you can use parts of one schema and parts of another; there�s not a lot of guidance about how to do that, but you should look into some of that work as well.

MZ: There are special media examples related to metadata markup languages so you can index into the frames.

Recorded 10/14/03
Judy Spicer and Faith Anne Myers
ENC

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