Metadata and Electronic Publications T.B. Rajashekar National Centre for Science Information Indian Institute of Science Bangalore – Prepared for presentation in the Workshop on 'Electronic Publishing of Scientific Information‘, Organized by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, March 2002

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Electronic Publishing - Context Levels of EP: Desktop publishing (individual workstations. Ex. Word, PDF, PS) Network publishing Intranets (Ex. Organization/ Department websites) Internet (Ex. Electronic journals) E-Journals publishing: Stakeholders Publishers, authors, users, libraries, subscription agents, aggregators…

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 E-Journals Publishing: Some Key Issues Publisher Content management (workflow, quality…) Subscription/ payment management Rights management Bibliographic control & resource discovery Preservation Linking, sharing, exchange User/ Library Resource discovery (search, identify, locate, access) Access management Reference linking Resource sharing Seamless access – bibliographic – fulltext Gateway services Perpetual access

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Metadata is key for: Content management, Content Organization, Bibliographic Control, Resource discovery, Rights Management, Access Management, Preservation, Linking and data exchange

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 What is Metadata? Data about data - Digitalspeak for what librarians have been doing much before the Internet – surrogates, catalogs A metadata record consists of a set of attributes, or elements, necessary to describe the resource in question Structured information Describes, explains, locates an information resource Makes it easier to retrieve, use or manage an information resource

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 What Does Metadata Describe? papers, articles information pages images sound collections user profiles Spatial data...Digital and physical manifestations

Content publishing & access workflow

Object Server DocumentsAudio VideoDatabase Author: … Title: …. Subject: … Source type: … Format: … …. Print sources METADATAMETADATA Catalog Server

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Types of Metadata Different types of metadata Descriptive Purpose: Resource discovery and identification Ex.: Title, abstract, author, URL, keywords, etc. Administrative & Rights Management Purpose: Help manage a resource Ex.: Who created and when, who can access, etc. Structural metadata Purpose: Document structure Ex.: Chapter, section, paragraph

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Metadata Example: E-Journal Gateway Service Context: Library in an academic intranet Issue: How do we manage access to large number of e-journals and provide convenient access?

An example gateway service for e-journals

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Metadata Example: E-Print archive software Context: Content management in an academic intranet Issue: How do we enforce metadata standard across an organization?

E-publishing in an intranet

Content management – E-Print Archives

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Metadata Example: XML-based metadata (IOP Publishing)

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Handling of Metadata Metadata can be used for describing resources at different aggregation levels Collection, specific resource, component of a resource, etc. Embedded in a digital object Ex. HTML documents, headers of images Stored separately (in a database system) Simplifies management of metadata Facilitates search and retrieval

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Uses of Metadata Resource discovery Finding, searching and identifying resources Field-based browse/ search Organizing electronic resources Ex.: Internet resource catalogues (web resource directories), Institutional publication archives, intranet content management Interoperability Exchange of data between systems – metadata standards facilitate cross-searching and sharing (metadata harvesting – OAI protocol)

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Uses of Metadata Digital identification, Bibliographic control Uniquely describe, identify & locate the digital object referred by the metadata PURL, DOI (CrossRef), OpenURL Archiving and preservation Data elements to track the lineage, physical characteristics, etc. Efforts are on to define metadata schemes for digital preservation (e.g. ISO’s Open Archival Information System OAIS)

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Metadata Schemes Set of metadata elements, with associated semantics and syntax for describing a particular type of resources Components (semantics, syntax, content): Metadata elements and their meaning/ definition Content rules – how content must be identified and formulated Representation rules – how content must be represented Content: Values given to metadata elements

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Examples of Metadata Schemes Dublin Core ( Network information resources Widely adopted Government Information Locator Service (GILS) (www. dtic.mil/gils/) Govt. resources TEI Header ( Electronic texts like novels, poetry, plays, etc.

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Examples of Metadata Schemes The Encoded Archival Description (EAD) ( Archives and special collections The Visual Resources Association (VRA) Core Categories Describe visual materials such as buildings, photographs, paintings, etc. ONIX International Online Information Exchange) XML-based metadata for communication of book trade information – being expanded to cover journals, conferences, etc.

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Examples of Metadata Schemes IMS Metadata ( Specs and software for managing online learning resources – resource discovery, IPR, commerce

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Examples of Metadata Schemes Metadata for datasets Numerical and statistical data Content Standard for Digital Geophysical Metadata (CSDGM) ( Topographic, demographic, GIS and computer-aided cartographic files Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) standard ( Social science data sets XML DTD

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Scientific Data Home Pages Geo Library Museums Commerce Whatever... Communities Resource Description Communities

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) International standard for describing network digital resources Consists of 15 elements, each repeatable, none mandatory Conceived in 1994 Has reached standard status – W3C, NISO, ISO Widely used in several projects around the world Being refined further

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set Title Author/Creator Subject /Keywords Description Publisher Other Contributor Date Resource Type Format Resource Identifier Source Language Relation Coverage Rights Management

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Key Features of DC Simplicity of creation and maintenance Small and simple element set Non-specialists can create metadata records Enable effective search and retrieval Commonly understood semantics Generic, common element set facilitates cross-domain accessibility (e.g. “creator” - document, music) International scope DC element set in several languages Extensibility Linkages with other metadata sets

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Uses of DC Used mainly for describing document-like objects – metadata standards for other domains exist (e.g. e- commerce, education) DC record can be embedded in the resource itself (e.g. “Meta” tag of HTML) DC elements may be contained in a record separate from the resource Database of DC element records, each describing a separate electronic resource (e.g. subject gateways)

DC in HTML   UKOLN Home Page  ...

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Metadata Example: Use of DC in an intranet information portal

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 DC Projects Implemented in over 100 projects in several countries Government Information Australian Government Locator Service Danish Online Government Information Finnish Online Government Information Libraries and DLs (e.g. CORC – Cooperative Online Resource Catalogue, of OCLC) Intranets – Nokia, Boeing, Ford, Weyerhaeuser

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 DC Projects… Science and Mathematics Environment Australia, Swedish EnviroNet, German Mathematical Society Preprint Project… Education EDNA (Educational Network of Australia) GEM (Gateway to Educational Materials) German Education Resources Server IMS (Instructional Management System) DC + discipline-specific elements

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 DC Projects… Humanities AHDS Arts and Humanities Data Service CIMI Metadata Testbed Project SCRAN (Scottish Cultural Resources Access Network) Publishing/ e-commerce E-books ( INDECS (Interoperability of Data in E-Commerce Systems) ( - data model for IPR management in publishing, recording industrywww.indecs.org

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Metadata Creation Who creates metadata? Author Technical staff (cataloguers) Combination Integration into EP workflow Manual/ automated processes and tools Quality control Develop/ adopt metadata standards – key to successful EP

T.B. Rajashekar NCSI, IISc 14 th March 2002 Related Resources Metadata made simpler: A guide for libraries. Gail Hodge ( Dublin Core (dublincore.org) Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (Std.) ( CrossRef and reference linking ( Digital Object Identifier (