Metadata Lessons Learned
Katy Ginger ([email protected])
Digital Learning Sciences
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
Two Metadata Stories
1. Digital Library for Earth System
Education (DLESE)
•
Earth science focused
•
Educationally oriented (K-12 slant)
•
Asked to address datasets
2. National Science Digital Library (NSDL)
•
Science, Engineering, Technology, Math and
Medical (STEM) focused
•
Educational focus via 10 Pathways (higher ed slant)
Actual Objects
1. DLESE: (came online 1999/2000)
•
Lesson plans, activities, labs, articles, projects
•
Visualizations and some datasets
•
Datasets that have an educational wrapper
•
Reviews, teaching tips, news & events (separate objects from above 3)
2. NSDL: (came online 2002)
•
Same as above; but reviews, teaching tips, news &
events are not separate objects as in DLESE
*Only metadata that links to external resources is held
Types of Contributors
1. DLESE:
•
PIs of NSF funded projects,
•
K-12 educator groups
•
Government organizations: NASA, USGS, NOAA, NAS
•
Informal educators from museums
•
University faculty
2. NSDL:
•
Same as above and including
•
Publishers (often but not limited to textbooks)
Initial Metadata Context
DLESE
• IMS because of education
focus & geospatial info
• Required 10 fields but no
data typing enforced
• Community developed
vocabularies for required
metadata - subject, resource
type, tech requirements &
grade range
• Collections can use a variety
of methods to send metadata
• Metadata creation and
format changing support
NSDL
• Qualified Dublin Core & IEEE
fields
• All fields optional
• Dublin Core controlled
vocabs
• Require collections to use
OAI to send metadata
• No support to collection
builders to create metadata
or change formats
Change Happens
DLESE
• IMS changes versions
• Promised support for
geospatial does not happen
• Community demands
geospatial focus first
• Community changes to an
education focus
• DLESE funding emphasizes
quality (resources &
metadata)
• An annotation and review
project is a primary player
NSDL
• Scientific Pathways become
content stewards (only some
contribute)
• All fields still optional;
encourage presence of title,
description, grade range
• Pathways disappointed
cannot easily exchange
metadata and understand
meaning
• Pathways feel their highquality materials & metadata
are lost in NSDL
Current Metadata Context
DLESE
• ADN: education, geospatial,
temporal & space info
• Strong data-typing enforced
by XML schemas
• Required 10 fields
• Vocabularies for optional
metadata – educational
standards, teaching method
• Developed other metadata
frameworks to support new
objects like annotations, tips
& news
NSDL
• Uses qualified Dublin Core &
IEEE
• All fields optional
• Dublin Core controlled
vocabs
• Some NSDL specific vocabs
• Developing community
controlled vocabularies at
request of the Pathways –
grade range, resource type,
educational standards,
audience
Lesson Learned: Overview
• Metadata Frameworks
• Vocabularies
• Metadata Creation
• Storage Structures
• Catalog Tools
• Contributing
Lesson Learned: Frameworks 1
DLESE
NSDL
• Using multiple metadata
frameworks
• No required metadata results
in very little metadata
– Creates overhead
– Allows flexibility
– DLESE meets community
demands quicker
– Supports DLESE resource
centric searching
– Creates higher quality
metadata when different
objects are recognized
• Using a standard metadata
framework creates overhead
in keeping up and deciding
on backwards compatibility
• Does it truly create
interoperability? Not
necessarily (e.g. Pathways
find sharing difficult)
Lesson Learned: Frameworks 2
• Be clear to community in terms of version support
• Are multiple metadata formats allowed or only one for
a particular object? (DLESE and NSDL both use a single
format only for learning objects)
• Use a standard or own metadata framework?
– DLESE experience: Own framework worked very well but
it was purposely made to be encompassing so that it could
be mapped to multiple other metadata formats
– NSDL experience: Important to say using Dublin Core but
most metadata fields incomplete even for own browsing
Lesson Learned: Frameworks 3
• Bottom line: use metadata that can be mapped to
multiple formats without much loss of data
• Because more organizations/people (than you can
think of) will ask to share metadata with you or
request your metadata for their project
• Know the copyright & terms of use of the metadata
shared and ingested
Lesson Learned: Vocabularies
• Definitions, definitions, definitions: to provide meaning
• Extremely useful in creating browse capabilities
• Useful in knowing what’s in the library (e.g. subject)
• Gives novice catalogers a better chance at cataloging
• Encourages some consistency by its use
• Decide how terms are managed and aged off
• Decide if a vocabulary registry will be used (terms
become URI then)
• Decide if vocabularies will be enforced
Lesson Learned: Metadata Creation
• Nature of community requires
– Tool support for metadata creation
– Metadata and collection building training for novices
• Support legacy/existing metadata formats semantically
and technically:
– Help map vocabularies
– Help change metadata formats programmatically
• Most useful DLESE and NSDL metadata (rank order):
title, description, resource type, grade range
Lesson Learned: Storage Structures
• Metadata is just one piece of information for an object
(it just tends to be a bit more structured)
• Choose flexible storage structures (e.g. digital libraries
use Fedora and Lucene indexes) for metadata,
content indexing, content storage and user supplied
notes/annotations
Lesson Learned: Catalog Tools
• Make flexible – DLESE Collection System (DCS)
generates user interfaces and vocabs directly from
XML schemas
• Provide cataloging support
– Define the each metadata field
– Provide Best Practices for cataloging each field
• Have built-in metadata sharing capabilities (OAI, API,
web services)
Lesson Learned: Contributing
• Allow contributors to provide metadata via multiple
methods (OAI, APIs, web services and many more)
• Contributors are more inclined to contribute content
rather than metadata
• If willing to contribute metadata, often not aware of
metadata format to be contributed or metadata best
practices
• Don’t understand the relationship between metadata
and its ability to support uniform or targeted discovery
More Information
• DLESE Metadata: http://www.dlese.org/Metadata
• Using Annotation to Add Value to a Digital Library for
Education (DLib: Vol. 12, Num. 5
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may06/arko/05arko.html)
• The NSDL Repository: Using Fedora:
http://ndr.comm.nsdl.org/doc/api.pdf
• OAI Software: jOAI
http://www.dlese.org/dds/services/joai_software.jsp