Thursday, 22 May A Handbook of Guidelines on Metadata Usage Jon Mason Metadata Downunder – Metadata, Semantics and Interoperability in Practice Sydney, May 22 nd 2008

Thursday, 22 May Overview Background & Context Why it was developed Who for Environmental drivers Current Status What Next?

Thursday, 22 May Who for & Why Audience: Education & Training sector in Australia & New Zealand Non-expert users of metadata Anyone with an interest ! Why: To de-mystify metadata To better inform intending practitioners To provide a snapshot of relevant activities associated with metadata to broad mix of stakeholders To raise awareness of the role of Standards Australia To strengthen links between Standards Australia & AICTEC

Thursday, 22 May Context …

Thursday, 22 May Context “In network space metadata will be associated with everything that moves …supporting multiple operations” Multiple types of Information Objects Collections Services People Organizations Places Terms Formats Rights Source: Lorcan Dempsey NISO Workshop: Metadata Practices on the Cutting Edge Washington, May

Thursday, 22 May Context Web Services Addressing Metadata Becomes a W3C Proposed Recommendation July 31, Members of the W3C Web Services Addressing Working Group have released the "Web Services Addressing Metadata" specification as a Proposed Recommendation. Public comment is invited through 30-August-2007 Source:

Thursday, 22 May Once Upon a Time Ten years ago … – EdNA a national approach to IT infrastructure development – EdNA Metadata “Standard” ( ) extends Dublin Core – Dublin Core Education WG produces draft Application Profile – IEEE LTSC – LOM draft – IMS Meta-Data Specification (1998) Five Years ago – LOM is standardised (IEEE ) – DC Element Set standardised (ISO ) – SCORM begins to gain significant acceptance – The Ottawa Communiqué (Intent to Collaborate)

Thursday, 22 May Key Initiatives 2002: The Learning Federation Metadata Specification – Application Profile (mixed namespaces) – Updated a number of times (currently at v2.2) 2003: Higher Education sector – Activities begin focusing on research repositories – Grid projects beginning 2003: Where to for EdNA? – Formal review initiated by AICTEC Standards Committee 2004: VET sector – Activity focused on Learning Objects

Thursday, 22 May Key Initiatives 2004: Need for Broad Guidelines grows – Discussed in AICTEC Standards & Interoperability Committee, but funding not available – Taken forward within IT-19-1 (Debbie Campbell & Jon Mason sketch out requirements) 2005: VETADATA as an Australian SCORM profile – Supporting Repositories of Learning Objects 2005: AICTEC considers ‘common application profile’ – Working Group formed to identify ‘common approach’

Thursday, 22 May Getting Serious IDEA Metadata Workshop – Melbourne (Feb 2005) Educause Conference – Auckland (April 2005) DC-ANZ Workshop – Melbourne (June 2005) Combined IT-19-1 & AICTEC Metadata Working Group Workshop at USQ (April 2006) Content from wiki that developed outputs from above

Thursday, 22 May Getting Serious February 2007: Funding!

Thursday, 22 May The Handbook Contents 1. SCOPE 2. INTRODUCTION TO METADATA 2.1DEFINING METADATA 2.2VARIETES OF METADATA OVERVIEW GENERAL & SPECIALIST METADATA MINIMALIST & RICH METADATA HIERARCHICAL & FLAT STRUCTURES MACHINE GENERATED & HUMAN AUTHORED METADATA STRUCTURED & UNSTRUCTURED METADATA EMBEDDED & DETACHED METADATA 2.3SPECIFIC METADATA TYPES ADMINISTRATIVE DESCRIPTIVE TECHNICAL PRESERVATION ACCESSIBILITY STRUCTURAL PEOPLE 2.4FUNCTIONS AND USES DISCOVERY IDENTIFICATION ASSOCIATION SELECTION MANAGEMENT PRESERVATION RIGHTS MANAGEMENT EXCHANGE AGGREGATION 2.5FOLKSONOMIES 2.6LOOKING MORE BROADLY 2.7WHY USE METADATA? WHY NOT? HB 256

Thursday, 22 May The Handbook Contents 3.IDENTIFYING BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS 3.1PRINCIPLES 3.2INITIAL CONSIDERATIONS 3.3THINKING ABOUT OUTCOMES 3.4DESIGNING A SYSTEM 3.5AUDIENCE 3.6SCOPING REQUIREMENTS 3.7DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION 3.8KEY FUNCTIONS TO CONSIDER 3.9GENERAL 3.10IDENTIFICATION 3.11DESCRIPTION 3.12MANAGEMENT 3.13DELIVERY 3.14EXCHANGE 3.15PRESERVATION 4.METADATA SCHEMAS 4.1INTRODUCTION 4.2APPLICATION PROFILES 5.DEVELOPING A NEW METADATA SCHEMA 5.1INTRODUCTION 5.2DEVELOPING AN APPLICATION PROFILE 5.3VOCABULARIES, CLASSIFICATION AND TAXONOMIES 5.3.1TYPES 5.3.2GENERAL 5.3.3UNCONTROLLED VOCABULARIES 5.3.4CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES 5.3.5FOLKSONOMIES 5.3.6TAXONOMIES 5.3.7THESAURI 5.3.8ONTOLOGIES 5.3.9TOPIC MAPS MULTI-LINGUAL VOCABULARIES 5.4BINDINGS 5.5HARVESTING & FEDERATED SEARCHING

Thursday, 22 May The Handbook Contents 6METADATA TOOLS 6.1INTRODUCTION 6.2TYPES OF TOOLS CREATION TOOLS CROSSWALK TOOLS HARVESTING TOOLS REPOSITORIES 7METADATA SKILLS 7.1BASICS 7.2VOCABULARIES, CLASSIFICATION AND TAXONOMIES 7.3TECHNICAL METADATA SKILLS 7.4TECHNICAL SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE 7.5TECHNICAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SKILLS & KNOWLEDGE 7.6SOURCES OF TRAINING APPENDIX A – USE CASES APPENDIX B – ACRONYMS APPENDIX C – GLOSSARY OF TERMS APPENDIX D – REFERENCES APPENDIX E – COMMONLY USED SCHEMAS APPENDIX F – AUSTRALASIAN CLASSIFICATIONS & VOCABULARIES APPENDIX G – MONITORING DEVELOPMENTS

Thursday, 22 May

Thursday, 22 May Current Metadata Status A number of prominent standards DC, LOM, MARCXML, MODS, … Proliferation of application profiles SCORM, VETADATA, NZ ESAF, APSR-METS A range of controlled vocabularies Interoperability achieved at low level Minimum number of elements common across profiles Guidelines and best practice documentation available Mainly sector specific

Thursday, 22 May Current Metadata Status Impact of Web 2.0 Informal metadata – user tagging Folksonomies Many pathways to aggregation & syndication of content Ongoing challenges for achieving interoperability

Thursday, 22 May What Next? Widespread usage Feedback gathered for next edition Changes in external environment monitored Next Edition! A re-think?

Thursday, 22 May Concluding Comments One person’s metadata is another’s data! A multiplicity of metadata standards and application profiles developed for different business requirements Publication of the Handbook Obtainable for free as a PDF Represents significant milestone Establishes precedent for ongoing collaboration between AICTEC & Standards Australia

Thursday, 22 May Questions This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial ShareAlike 2.5 License. More information at: