Metadata: Describing Media Assets to Improve "Findability"
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[edit] Overview
[edit] A Primer for Understanding Metadata
[edit] What is Metadata, Anyway?
“Metadata” is descriptive information about a resource. The resource may be video or audio, an image or graphic, a text-based document, or any other informational item whether electronic or not.
The primary purpose of metadata is to enhance findability and facilitate sharing...the ability to describe a resource and allow someone to discover, review, select, and retrieve an item. Fundamentally, metadata is an enabler.
Examples of metadata include the name of an item; descriptions or abstracts about its content; keywords or subject classifications; file formats; authors; producers; distributors; publishers; copyright and usage restrictions; etc.
Metadata needs to be structured in some way. The descriptions available through metadata cannot be created in a random or ad hoc manner. In other words, metadata should follow a well-documented, formalized scheme. The flip side of using standardized metadata schemes is called "Folksonomy" and is described in a Wikipedia article.
- A folksonomy is an Internet-based information retrieval methodology consisting of collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links. A folksonomy is most notably contrasted from a taxonomy in that the authors of the labeling system are often the main users (and sometimes originators) of the content to which the labels are applied. The labels are commonly known as tags and the labeling process is called tagging.
- In contrast to professionally developed taxonomies with controlled vocabularies, folksonomies are unsystematic and, from an information scientist's point of view, unsophisticated; however, for Internet users, they dramatically lower content categorization costs because there is no complicated, hierarchically organized nomenclature to learn. One simply creates and applies tags on the fly. Moreover, folksonomies are inherently open-ended and can therefore respond quickly to changes and innovations in the way users categorize Internet content.
- Critics suggest folksonomies are characterized by flaws that formal classification systems are designed to eliminate including polysemy (words which have multiple related meanings; for example, a window can be a hole or a sheet of glass); and synonyms, multiple words with the same or similar meanings (tv and television, or Netherlands/Holland/Dutch) and plural words (cat and cats). In addition, folksonomies all but invite deliberately idiosyncratic tagging, called meta noise, which burdens users and decreases the system's information retrieval utility. Those who prefer top-down taxonomies/ontologies argue that an agreed set of tags enables more efficient indexing and searching of content.
By the way, the "descriptions" are called "metadata." However, the "thing" being described is often referred to as the "essence." Essence + Metadata yields a media asset that has value to various end-user communities.
An online Metadata Primer is available from the NSDL--the National Science Digital Library.
[edit] What is a Metadata Dictionary?
It's all about definitions. When creating a systematic method for describing media resources, you have to start by creating metadata categories. Whether created from scratch or harvested from other sources, metadata categories must be defined...thus a metadata dictionary.
In defining a dictionary...
- The metadata categories are called ELEMENTS (see What is a Metadata Element?).
- An ELEMENT may stand alone, or be further refined by creating a SUB-ELEMENT or QUALIFIED ELEMENT (see What is a Sub-Element?)
- Each ELEMENT has a carefully defined set of qualities or ATTRIBUTES (see What are Element Attributes?)
- And finally, the defined elements are combined into an APPLICATION PROFILE that is specific to the needs of a particular community or type of user (see What is an Application Profile?)
[edit] What is a Metadata Element?
The Periodic Table of Elements contains a carefully structured visualization of the chemical building blocks of the universe as we know it. Metadata Elements are the descriptive building blocks used to verbally or visually describe the world of resources, assets, media items, or "essence."
A metadata application profile consists of many metadata elements. A greater number of metadata elements are employed by catalogers to not only describe media items, but also to track back-office, administrative information associated with the acquisition, ingestion, life cycle, and rights associated with those items. For consumers or end users, a smaller, core set of descriptors is exposed in order to simplify search and retrieval of cataloged items licensed for public consumption.
[edit] What is a Sub-Element?
We're talking about drilling down to the descriptive core of a media item or resource. If the descriptors attached to a specific element aren't specific or expressive enough to fully identify an item, then that element needs to be further refined or qualified by using a companion or associated "sub-element." These are often built in a hierarchical structure.
The reason to use sub-elements is to achieve a detailed level of description that best suits a community of users (such as educational communities) without going overboard. After all, at some point in the process, a real, live person must describe an asset using the elements provided. An overly simplistic set of elements fails to capture the nature of that resource. An overly compulsive set of elements may capture every aspect of a resource, but be too difficult to use, too time consuming to implement, and too confusing to understand by most humans. One needs a set of elements and qualified elements that is "just right."
An element and its associated sub-element descriptions are often referred to as a container, implying that the descriptions are related in nature and should be transported or conveyed to information systems intact, as a container. A simple example might be the contributing creators of a video program in which one "contributor container" contains an individual's name (e.g., Smithee, Alan) plus that person's role (director). A second instance of a "contributor container" contains another name (e.g., Doe, Jane) plus that person's role (executive producer). The name is "qualified" by a role or function. Unless a name and its associated role are paired in a container, then all you achieve is a list of names and disassociated roles.
[edit] What is an Authority, Controlled Vocabulary, and Structured Syntax?
In addition to refining the descriptions of an element by creating sub-elements that "qualify," refinement can be achieved by setting forth restrictions on how data is actually entered for a descriptor.
The grammar of a descriptor may be controlled. A good example of this type of refinement is the order in which a person's name is displayed, e.g., LastName, FirstName MiddleName, Credentials (for a very interesting discussion on the complexities of displaying names, see "Representing People's Names in Dublin Core".
Another example is the manner in which dates are represented, whether you order the data by Month/Day/Year, Day/Month/Year or Year/Month/Day (for a discussion of the representation variables in displaying dates and times, see the W3C report on "Date and Time Formats".
In order to better control the terms and descriptions used while cataloging, some metadata elements can employ ways to refine or encode/enter your data, using formal notations, vocabularies or parsing rules.
- Use an authority file from another agency that specifies how to properly enter descriptive information for a type of metadata element. It may provide taxonomies of terms organized into logical hierarchies, such as the Library of Congress "subject" terms.
- Use a short listing of prescribed terms, often called a controlled vocabulary. The best practice is to select a term or terms from a picklist. The picklist insures consistency in data entry.
- Follow a particular structured syntax, punctuation or grammar when entering data, e.g., LastName, FirstName MiddleName, Credentials or dates as 2005-02-24 (YYYY-MM-DD).
Controlling the descriptions entered for a metadata element ultimately means that end users are able to conduct successful searches for relevant media items and avoid an explosive number of irrelevant "hits."
[edit] What are Element Attributes?
Once again the topic focuses on specificity and standardization. There are many specifications on how to define data elements. If one hopes to share metadata descriptions with other organizations and entities (interoperability), then it's best to follow an established set of guidelines in setting up and defining metadata elements. A commonly understood framework allows diverse groups to appreciate, even harvest, data from each other.
One such framework standard for describing data elements used in databases and documents is called ISO/IEC 11179: Specification and Standardization of Data Elements. Technically speaking, a metadata dictionary is considered to be "cognizant of ISO/IEC 11179." In using this standard, each descriptor or metadata element is identified by numerous attributes or characteristics that define the meaning and use of an element.
Although end-users are mostly unaware of the underlying structures of a metadata schema, those of us who mark up or create descriptions are immersed in understanding metadata field attributes. What are the attributes that are part of the ISO/IEC 11179 framework?
- NAME
- The actual name of the descriptor or element.
- DEFINITION
- A brief definition of the descriptor or element. Guidelines for understanding how to use an individual element from UMAP are described under the attribute Guidelines for Usage.
- REFINEMENTS & ENCODING SCHEMES
- In order to better control the terms and descriptions used while cataloging, some metadata elements can exploit ways to refine or "encode/enter" your data, using formal notations, vocabularies or parsing rules.
- Use an "authority file" from another agency that specifies how to properly enter descriptive information for a type of metadata element. It may provide taxonomies of terms organized into logical hierarchies, such as the Library of Congress "subject" terms.
- Use a short listing of prescribed terms, often called a "controlled vocabulary." The best practice is to select a term or terms from a picklist. The picklist insures consistency in data entry.
- Follow a particular syntax, punctuation or grammar when entering data, e.g., LastName, FirstName MiddleName, Credentials.
Controlling the descriptions entered for a metadata element ultimately means that end users are able to conduct successful searches for relevant media items.
- GUIDELINES FOR USAGE
- The Guidelines are a brief user's guide to understanding UMAP, its elements, their intended meanings, and the proper way to use them when entering data or cataloging.
- OBLIGATION TO USE
- A metadata element does NOT necessarily have to be used or contain data when cataloging a media item. The "Obligation to Use" a metadata element is defined by these options...
- MANDATORY: must use
- MANDATORY IF APPLICABLE: must use if it makes sense for a media item
- OPTIONAL: completely up to you
- RECOMMENDED: it is consdiered a good idea to enter data for this element
- REPEATABLE ELEMENT
- Some metadata schemes, such as the Dublin Core, suggest if you need to catalog more than one term or data entry for a single element, you repeat the instance of an element, each instance having a different term. For example, the element alternativeModes may have two entries, one for "SAP1 - Spanish" and one for "ClosedCaption - English." This attribute may be defined as REPEATABLE, UNBOUNDED, MINIMUM OCCURENCE, MAXIMUM OCCURENCE, or may actually use a number.
- TYPE OF DATA ENTRY
- Any database designer must indicate what type of data is permitted for a field. The type of data permitted is often defined as TEXT STRING, NUMBER, INTEGER, DATE, DATETIME, TIME, CHAR, etc. UMAP uses relatively few data entry types. Most are text strings. Even the metadata elements which contain date/time stamps are considered to be text strings because of the use of the W3C-DTF encoding rules for dates and times, a profile based on ISO 8601-- http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime
- EXAMPLES
- To illustrate the proper use of an element, UMAP provides many real world examples, particulary when the definition for an element is rather dense or confusing.
- ELEMENT LABEL
- (Administrative Attribute)
- Usually the attribute called Name and the attribute called Label are the same. The Label is used to indicate the exact manner in which an element is referenced.
- ELEMENT VERSION
- (Administrative Attribute)
- While developing metadata, several versions of elements or the meaning attached to them will change over time. Like software editions that are released, Element Version indicates the version you are viewing (hopefully, the most recent version).
- NAMESPACE IDENTIFIER
- (Administrative Attribute)
- http://library.csun.edu/mwoodley/dublincoreglossary.html
- A unique name that identifies an organization that has developed an XML Schema. A namespace is identified via a Uniform Resource Identifier (a URL or URN). For example, the namespace for Dublin Core elements and qualifiers would be expressed respectively in XML as:
- xmlns:dc = "http://dublincore.org/elements/1.0/"
- xmlns:dcq = "http://dublincore.org/qualifiers/1.0/" >
- The use of namespaces allows the definition of an element to be unambiguously identified with a URI, even though the label "title" alone might occur in many metadata sets. In more general terms, one can think of any closed set of names as a namespace. Thus, a controlled vocabulary such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings, a set of metadata elements such as DC, or the set of all URLs in a given domain can be thought of as a namespace that is managed by the authority that is in charge of that particular set of terms.
- REGISTRATION AUTHORITY
- (Administrative Attribute)
- http://library.csun.edu/mwoodley/dublincoreglossary.html
- A system to provide management of metadata elements. Metadata registries are formal systems that provide authoritative information about the semantics and structure of data elements. Each element will include the definition of the element, the qualifiers associated with it, mappings to multilingual versions and elements in other schema. A registration authority facilitates the consistent use of a metadata element by all parties and communities. It also contributes to the longevity of a metadata element as it maintains its integrity over time.
- LANGUAGE OF THE ELEMENT
- (Administrative Attribute)
- Depending on the Registration Authority for a metadata element or its country of origination and usage, the language used to define an element is indicated. Standards exist to express languages in either two-letter or three-letter codes.
- This attribute, "Language of the Element," refers to the language used to define the element and has nothing to do with the language used in the media item you are cataloging. A descriptor called language is often used to identify the primary language of a media item.
- ISO-639-2: Codes for the representation of names of languages as a 3-letter code-- http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2
[edit] What is an Application Profile?
- http://library.csun.edu/mwoodley/dublincoreglossary.html
- An Application Profile is a set of metadata elements, policies, and guidelines defined for a particular application or situation. The elements may be harvested from one or more element sets, thus allowing a given application or profile to use pre-established, well-formed, standardized metadata in addition to other medadata descriptors that are created and defined locally (custom metadata). For example, a given application might choose a subset of the Dublin Core that meets its needs, or may select elements from the Dublin Core, another element set, and several locally defined elements, all combined in a single schema. An Application Profile is not complete without documentation that defines the policies and best practices appropriate to its use and application.
- http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue25/app-profiles/
- An application profile has been defined by the ARIADNE Foundation in a paper entitled "Application Profiles: Mixing and Matching Metadata Schemas," by Rachel Heery and Manjula Patel. Excerpts are included below.
- Application profiles consist of data elements drawn from one or more namespace schemas combined together by implementors and optimised for a particular local application. Application profiles are useful as they allow the implementor to declare how they are using standard schemas.
- The experience of implementors is critical to effective metadata management...implementors use standard metadata schemas in a pragmatic way. This is not new, to re-work Diane Hillmann’s maxim ‘there are no metadata police’, implementors will bend and fit metadata schemas for their own purposes.
- Schema application profiles are distinguished by a number of characteristics. They...
- May draw on one or more existing namespaces
- The application profile may use elements from one or more different element sets, but the application profile cannot create new elements not defined in existing namespaces.
- Introduce no new data elements
- All elements in an application profile are drawn from elsewhere, from distinct namespace schemas. If an implementor wishes to create ‘new’ elements that do not exist elsewhere then (under this model) they must create their own namespace schema, and take responsibility for ‘declaring’ and maintaining that schema.
- May specify permitted schemes and values
- Often individual implementations wish to specify which range of values are permitted for a particular element, in other words they want to specify a particular controlled vocabulary for use in metadata created in accordance with that schema. The implementor may also want to specify mandatory schemes to be used for particular elements, for example particular date formats, particular formats for personal names.
- Can refine standard definitions
- The application profile can refine the definitions within the namespace schema, but it may only make the definition semantically narrower or more specific. This is to take account of situations where particular implementations use domain specific, or resource specific language.
[edit] What is the Dublin Core (DCMI)?
- Dublin Core (ISO 15836) is an international standard for resource discovery (http://dublincore.org), particularly for media items and information distributed over the World Wide Web.
- The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. DCMI's activities include consensus-driven working groups, global workshops, conferences, standards liaison, and educational efforts to promote widespread acceptance of metadata standards and practices.
- The Dublin Core is a 15-element metadata element set intended to facilitate discovery of electronic resources. The Dublin Core has been in development since 1995 through a series of focused invitational workshops that gather experts from the library world, the networking and digital library research communities, and a variety of content specialties.
- The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is the body responsible for the ongoing maintenance of Dublin Core. The work of DCMI is done by contributors from many institutions in many countries. DCMI is a consensus-driven organization organized into working groups to address particular problems and tasks. DCMI working groups are open to all interested parties. Instructions for joining can be found at the DCMI web site under Working Groups.
[edit] What is IEEE-LOM--Learning Object Metadata ?
IEEE-LOM is formally known as IEEE 1484.12.1-2002, Learning Object Metadata Standard: LOMV1.0 Base Schema.
- BACKGROUND (taken from the IMS Meta-data Best Practice and Implementation Guide)
- In 1997, the IMS Project, part of the non-profit EDUCOM consortium (now EDUCAUSE) of US institutions of higher education and their vendor partners, established an effort to develop open, market-based standards for online learning, including specifications for learning content meta-data.
- Also in 1997, groups within the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) and the IEEE P.1484 study group (now the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee - LTSC) began similar efforts. The NIST effort merged with the IMS effort, and IMS began collaborating with the ARIADNE Project, a European Project with an active meta-data definition effort.
- In 1998, IMS and ARIADNE submitted a joint proposal and specification to IEEE, which formed the basis for the IEEE Learning Object Meta-Data (LOM) Draft Standard, which was a classification for a pre-draft IEEE Draft Standard. IMS publicized the IEEE work through the IMS community in the US, UK, Europe, Australia, and Singapore during 1999 and brought the resulting feedback into the ongoing specification development process.
- SCOPE (taken from the IMS Meta-data Best Practice and Implementation Guide)
- The IEEE LOM Draft Standard defines a set of meta-data elements that can be used to describe learning resources. This includes the element names, definitions, datatypes, and field lengths. The specification also defines a conceptual structure for the meta-data. The specification includes conformance statements for how meta-data documents must be organized and how applications must behave in order to be considered IEEE-conforming.
- The IEEE LOM Draft Standard is intended to support consistent definition of meta-data elements across multiple implementations
- The IMS Learning Resource Meta-Data Best Practice and Implementation Guide therefore includes or references:
- IEEE Learning Object Meta-Data Working Draft, Version 6.1
- IMS Learning Resource Meta-Data XML Binding, Version 1.2
- IMS Learning Resource Meta-Data Information Model, Version 1.2
- IMS Taxonomy and Vocabulary Lists
- The IMS Learning Resource Meta-Data Best Practice and Implementation Guide provides general guidance about how an application may use LOM meta-data elements. The IMS Learning Resource XML Binding specification provides a sample XML representation and XML control files (DTD, XSD) to assist developers with their meta-data implementations. None of these IEEE or IMS documents address details of meta-data implementation, such as its architecture, programming language, and data storage approach.
- EXTENSIONS (taken from the IMS Meta-data Best Practice and Implementation Guide)
- There has been, and continues to be, much debate on extending meta-data for uses beyond search engine retrieval. At this point, individual developers and implementers must make decisions on how to best extend meta-data.
- The LOM rule regarding extensions is that they shall not conflict with or alter specified meta-data elements. The intent is to discourage developers from creating new elements that replace or duplicate elements in the LOM standard. For example, a meta-data instance should not have a new element, say TitleAndVersion, that is used as a replacement for already existing elements; in this case the title and version of the meta-data structure.
[edit] What is a DTD and an XML Schema?
A metadata schema, as well as the actual descriptions of media items that may use the schema, need to be presented in some logical, clearly expressed manner so that the information can be understood. More importantly, using well-formed methods to express metadata schemas and descriptions allows different parties to share data; they are communicating using the same language and the same grammar.
A language that is often used to express well-formed data is XML, Extensible Markup Lanuage. Unfortunately, unless the party offering and the party accepting the well-formed data are using a common grammar, information is likely to be mangled as it is interpreted and validated.
This situation is where a DTD (Document Type Definition) or an XML Schema (also called an XSD--XML Schema Definition) is used to define the grammar and validate the data being shared. Some have stated that a DTD or XML Schema function as blueprints for describing the structure of the XML language in a document. These blueprints supply the...
- Sequence in which elements appear in an XML document
- Interrelationships between different elements (containers, parent-child associations or nested relationships)
- Types of data that are used to express elements and attributes (text string, number, date, timestamp, etc.)
DTDs have been around longer than XML Schemas, and are very widely used. However, they have some limitations in their capacities, such as using non-XML syntax to compose a DTD, support for limited data types, inability to identify namespaces (see What is a Namespace?), and no support for extensibility or inheritance. XML Schemas, however, do not have these limitations, and also allow users to craft their own data types.
Typically, more complex data structures, with multiple data types, require the use of an XML Schema over a DTD.
For additional information, listed here are Primers, XML Schema Definitions and Specifications as provided by W3C:
- XML Schema Tutorial by Roger L. Costello, September 2001
- The XML Schema Specification in Context by Rick Jelliffe, Academia Sinica Computing Centre 2000-02-24 draft only, compares XML Schema with XML DTDs, SGML DTDs, HyTime, and perl regular expressions
- The Current State of the Art of Schema Languages for XML by Rick Jelliffe, paper, XML Asia Pacific 2001, Sydney, Australia. A characterization and comments on schema languages for XML at the end of 2001
- Course "Programming XML in Java" Web site by John Punin, Autumn, 2001
- XML Schema, A Brief Introduction by Ian Stuart, October 26, 2001
- XML Schema tutorials materials-- slides, additional materials by Henry Thompson at XML 99 in Philadelphia (a GCA Conference)
- Using W3C XML Schema by Eric van der Vlist, October 17, 2001
- Schemas for XML by Norman Walsh, July 1, 1999
- Kal Ahmed has created topic maps from the XML Schema family of specifications. The HTML-ized result is now up at http://www.techquila.com/topicmaps/xmlschema/
- Danny Vint has created quick reference cards, available at http://www.xml.dvint.com/
[edit] What is a Namespace?
There are many metadata schemes available for use by various industries and communities, each with their own set of elements and definitions.
The creation of a "Namespace" that is referenced by schema makers and schema users is done in order to distinguish one set of element names from another set used by a different schema. For example, the element "description" may have divergent meanings from one set of metadata to another. Two or more developers may be using an identical element name, but the meaning behind their elements differ.
By declaring a formal Namespace in which a specific metadata schema declares the existence and meaning of its metadata elements and names, we avoid name collisons and confusion.
A Namespace declares a "bread crumb trail" between real world applications of a schema's metadata and its humble origins...or at least it points to the party responsible for its creation in the first place.
[edit] What is Mapping or Crosswalking?
A metadata standard is created in order to identify (in an organized and logical manner) how content, knowledge, and media are to be described. These descriptions often deal with three major categories:
- the actual intellectual content of an item,
- property and usage rights over an item, and
- format information about an item's physical or digital forms (instantiations).
Descriptions are expressed through metadata "elements." An element is a named placeholder for a very specific type of information, e.g., a title, an author's name, a country, a creation date, a set of keywords, etc.
Different metadata standards exist in order to serve the needs of particular user communities, such as public broadcasters, TV program listings, libraries, medical practitioners, artists, global positioning data, museum collections, statistical and social research, educational applications, and so on and so on.
In most cases, each metadata element that is employed in a metadata standard uses a consistent set of properties or attributes for identification and definition. These properties are outlined in the ISO/IEC 11179: Specification and Standardization of Data Elements and is expressed in half a dozen published documents and drafts. Technically speaking, a metadata dictionary is considered to be "cognizant of ISO/IEC 11179." To review the Review the "Attributes" or "Properties," see the section on this page entitled What are Element Attributes?
What happens when one community desires to share metadata information entered in its systems with another community that maintains its own metadata standard? In a perfect world, each metadata element from the "source" metadata standard could be paired with a similar metadata element in the "target" metadata standard, and the data would be transferred.
Unfortunately, such a pure one-to-one pairing or "harmonization" is rare. Although each standard may use a common method to express the properties of its metadata elements, the actual data held within the element may not "crosswalk" or "map" perfectly.
The following quote was extracted from an excellent article entitled Issues in Crosswalking Content Metadata Standards. It is published through NISO, the National Information Standards Organization, and is authored by Margaret St. Pierre of Blue Angel Technologies, Inc. and William P. LaPlant, Jr., of the U.S. Bureau of the Census Statistical Research Division-- http://www.niso.org/press/whitepapers/crsswalk.html .
- A crosswalk is a specification for mapping one metadata standard to another. Crosswalks provide the ability to make the contents of elements defined in one metadata standard available to communities using related metadata standards. Unfortunately, the specification of a crosswalk is a difficult and error-prone task requiring in-depth knowledge and specialized expertise in the associated metadata standards.
- Obtaining the expertise to develop a crosswalk is particularly problematic because the metadata standards themselves are often developed independently, and specified differently using specialized terminology, methods and processes. Furthermore, maintaining the crosswalk as the metadata standards change becomes even more problematic due to the need to sustain a historical perspective and ongoing expertise in the associated standards.
When harmonizing metadata elements from different standards, there are several points of intersection where collisions, rather than merging, may occur.
- Matching Semantic Definitions
- An element in the source standard may not find a companion element in the target standard because the definition, semantics, or meaning of the elements are different. With such a mismatch, a descriptor may not translate well.
- Matching Element-to-Element Relationships
- Suppose the source standard uses separate metadata elements to identify the (1) Last name of a person, (2) First name, (3) Middle name, and (4) Credentials for an individual. What if the target standard only employs a single element to contain all of a person's names, prefixes and suffixes? How do the "many" elements of the source map to the "one" element in the target? There is a "many-to-one" mismatch. Likewise, there may exist a "one-to-many" element mismatch between the source and target standards. Furthermore, one standard may contain extra elements and descriptors that cannot even be paired with the other system.
- Matching & Converting Content
- The properties for a metadata element may define or restrict its contents by...
- data types (e.g., text, numeric, string, date, etc.),
- ranges of values, or
- data refinements derived from the use of various authorities, controlled vocabularies, or specific syntaxes for the presentation of the data (e.g., keywords that are separated by semi-colons).
- repeatability of the element in order to express multiple values or desciptions
- mandatory or optional usage of the element when entering values.
- Even though a metadata element from a source standard may semantically match an element in a target standard, the rules by which the actual data entered in the element may differ between the systems. The mismatch may be resolved by some form of conversion or data reformatting. Consistency in how data was originally entered is key to formulating automatic conversion utilities or crosswalks.
- Matching Single vs. Multiple or Compound Data Objects
- Many asset management systems and databases allow the relationships between several data records/media items to be expressed. For example, a video program might have a transcript (text document), brochure (pdf), DVD (non-digital medium for order fulfillment), and other items associated with it. If an end user searches for the video program, the search results report the related media items as well. These associated/related items are often housed as a "multiple" or "compound" data object. Many databases actually refer to them as "container fields." If the source and target metadata system use different methods to identify and report multiple or compound objects, then a mismatch in mapping will occur.
- Matching Hierarchical and Flat Metadata Standards
- Some metadata standards, like IEEE-LOM (Learning Object Metadata) use a very hierarchical structure to organize the relationships between metadata elements. These relationships can often become quite complex. Other standards, such as Dublin Core, are flat in nature, with no implied or expressed hierarchy. Trying to pair metadata elements between a hierarchical and a flat system can be troublesome.
For a total immersion experience, drop into this website authored by the Metadata Advisory Group of the MIT Libraries:
They have listed crosswalks and URL references for sixteen standards, many of them library-oriented. Witnessing the work behind the mappings is a humbling experience.
[edit] What is OAI--Open Archives Initiative?
There is a brief article on the Open Archives Initative in the Wikipedia. This concisely written excerpt provides an overview of the OAI...
- The Open Archives Initiative (OAI) is an attempt to build a "low-barrier interoperability framework" for digital archives (aka "institutional repositories") containing digital content (aka "digital libraries"). It allows people (Service Providers) to harvest metadata (from Data Providers). This metadata is used to provide "value-added services", often by combining different data sets.
- Initially, the initiative has been involved in the development of a technological framework and interoperability standards specifically for enhancing access to e-print archives, in order to increase the availability of scholarly communication; OAI is, therefore, closely related to the Open Access movement. The developed technology and standards, though, are applicable in a much broader domain than scholarly publishing alone.
- The OAI technical infrastructure, specified in the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), currently in version 2.0, defines a mechanism for data providers to expose their metadata. This protocol mandates that individual archives map their metadata to the Dublin Core, a simple and common metadata set for this purpose.
Funding for the initiative comes from various organizations including the Joint Information Systems Committee.
[edit] Guidelines
If the information system, MAM, DAM or CMS system needs to expose its metadata to an Open Archives harvester, then some form of the metadata within those systems needs to be compliant with the OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting. This typically means Dublin Core mappings of metadata.
If specific classroom utilization descriptions and options are needed, then the IEEE-LOM Learning Object Metadata is an excellent choice, with the option to add "extensions" to the LOM to accommodate local and customized needs.
If a specific academic discipline is under consideration and associated metadata is being described, then extensions to whatever metadata dictionary or scheme is being used may be necessary. Hundreds of metadata dictionaries have been crafted for different disciplines, from art history, to architecture, and medicine. A particularly good metadata scheme useful for cataloging media objects used in medical education is HEAL--Health Education Assets Library.
If content is being uploaded to iTunes or to iTunes U, then the metadata scheme created for those interfaces must be honored. For a more complete description of those metadata descriptions, see the section about Podcasting Metadata in iTunes.
[edit] Resources
- ARIADNE
- ARIADNE is a European Association open to the World, for Knowledge Sharing and Reuse, E-Learning for all, International Cooperation in Teaching, Serving the Learning Citizen. Metadata Schema used extensively in Higher Education venues. In recent years, access to ARIADNE documentation and tool sets is restricted to member organizations.
- ARIADNE home page
- ARIADNE metadata model
- http://www.ariadne-eu.org/en/publications/metadata/ams_v32.html
- (this link is currently not publicly accessible)
- DCMI -- Dublin Core Metadata Initiative
- The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. DCMI's activities include consensus-driven working groups, global conferences and workshops, standards liaison, and educational efforts to promote widespread acceptance of metadata standards and practices.
- Dublin Core home page
- Grammatical principles
- DCMI Metadata Terms
- Policy on Name Terms
- Using Dublin Core
- Encoding Schemes
- Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1: Reference Description
- DCMI Type Vocabulary
- Mapping between Dublin Core and IEE 1484 Learning Objects Metadata
- Western States Dublin Core Metadata Best Practices Guide V2.1
- DC-Ed
- DCMI Education Working Group
- A Proposal from the Dublin Core Education Working Group [DCEd] to the Dublin Core Usage Committee of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative [DCMI]. While the objectives of the Working Group in 2003-2004 will include continuing discussion and development of proposals for the use of Dublin Core metadata in the description of educational resources, particular emphasis will be placed on developing strong, ongoing (formal and informal) working relationships among existing metadata standards initiatives for resource description in learning, education and training with the aim of advancing the goal of metadata interoperability within the domain.
- DCMI Education Working Group
- Joint DCMI/IEEE LTSC Taskforce wiki (harmonizing IEEE LOM with Dublin Core
- DRM
- Digital Rights Management (general overview)
- Describes efforts underway within the research networking and library communities to develop a digital rights management (DRM) solution to support teaching and research. Our specific focus is to present a reference architecture for a federated DRM implementation that leverages existing and emerging middleware infrastructure. The goals of the Federated Digital Rights Management (FDRM) project are to support local and inter-institutional sharing of resources in a discretionary, secure and private manner, while endeavoring to maintain a balance between the rights of the end-user and those of the owner.
- Proposed DRM Solution for Research and Education
- DRM
- The ODRL Foundation Model
- The Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) is a proposed language for the Digital Rights Management (DRM) community for the standardisation of expressing rights information over content. The ODRL is intended to provide flexible and interoperable mechanisms to support transparent and innovative use of digital resources in publishing, distributing and consuming of electronic publications, digital images, audio and movies, learning objects, computer software and other creations in digital form. The ODRL has no license requirements and is available in the spirit of "open source" software.
- ODRL Initiative home page
- ODRL DRM definitions and terms
- EBU P/META
- European Broadcast Union Metadata Exchange Scheme
- P/Meta scheme is a universal standard for metadata exchange between professionals that is both language and system independent. Implementation on any platform using Key-Length-Value (KLV) or XML (or any other appropriate coding) is supported. P/Meta is not related with the transfer of media and does neither define the storage of metadata nor the exchange file format. It consists of flat lists of attributes complete with semantic definitions, a list of transaction sets (each of which is built from attributes and other sets), a list of reference data for appropriate attributes, a syntax and notation for set construction.
- EBU Project Group P/Meta - Metadata Exchange Scheme, V1.0
- P/Meta Exchange Scheme v1.0
- File Exchange Formats and Metadata
- GEMCat
- Gateway to Education Media Cataloguing Module & Tools
- The cataloging module, GEMCat, is a stand-alone program for cataloging Internet resources using the GEM element set, profile, and controlled vocabularies.
- GEM Gateway home page
- GEM tools for preparing descriptions of educational resources
- http://www.thegateway.org/ [about>tools]
- GEMCat Cataloging Module Overview
- http://www.thegateway.org/ [about>tools>gemcat cataloging module]
- GEM Tools Downloads
- http://thegateway.org/ [about>tools>gem tools download]
- GEMCat v3.22 Web-Based Cataloging Tool (Java)
- GEM Documentation for its metadata descriptors
- http://thegateway.org/
- [about>documentation>GEM 2.0: Application Profiles]
- [about>documentation>GEM 2.0: Element Descriptions]
- [about>documentation>Controlled Vocabularies]
- [about>documentation>Metadata Schemas]
- [about>documentation>Application Profiles]
- [about>documentation>Metadata Preparation for the the Gateway to Educational Materials]
- [about>documentation>GEM Element Descriptions (Archive)]
- [about>documentation>Development Environment]
- http://thegateway.org/
- HEAL-- Health Education Assets Library
- The Health Education Assets Library (HEAL) is a digital library that provides freely accessible digital teaching resources of the highest quality that meet the needs of today's health sciences educators and learners. The HEAL metadata schema is the foundation on which the HEAL distributed system is built; the schema is based on international standards and includes extensions specific to the health sciences. Users may implement the HEAL metadata schema on their local systems or may further extend the schema to meet local needs. The metadata schema provides an important mechanism for HEAL to share metadata with affiliate partner collections located on remote servers.
- HEAL home page
- HEAL metadata schema
- IEEE-LTSC LOM (Learning Technology Standards Committee Learning Object Metadata)
- This standard will specify the syntax and semantics of Learning Object Metadata, defined as the attributes required to fully/adequately describe a Learning Object. Learning Objects are defined here as any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used or referenced during technology supported learning. Examples of technology supported learning include computer-based training systems, interactive learning environments, intelligent computer-aided instruction systems, distance learning systems, and collaborative learning environments. Examples of Learning Objects include multimedia content,instructional content, learning objectives, instructional software and software tools, and persons, organizations, or events referenced during technology supported learning. The Learning Object Metadata standards will focus on the minimal set of attributes needed to allow these Learning Objects to be managed, located, and evaluated. The standards will accommodate the ability for locally extending the basic fields and entity types, and the fields can have a status of obligatory (must be present) or optional (maybe absent).
- The IEEE Learning Object Metadata Standard
- LOM Working Group
- IEEE LTSC Final LOM Draft Standard 1484.12.1
- Learning Object Metadata Links
- IMS Best Practice and Implementation Guide v.2.1 Final Specification
- Joint DCMI/IEEE LTSC Taskforce wiki (harmonizing IEEE LOM with Dublin Core
- Purchase the IEEE 1484.12.1-2002 Standard
- IETF
- Internet Engineering Task Force
- The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. They have published the ISO 639:1988 code for the representation of names of languages.
- IETF home page
- ISO 639:1988 Code for the Representation of Names of Languages
- 1989 Revision of the Code for the Representation of the Names of Languages ISO 639 (2 and 3 letter representations)
- IMS-- IMS Global Learning Consortium
- The mission of the IMS Global Learning Consortium is to support the adoption and use of learning technology worldwide. IMS is a non-profit organization that includes more than 50 Contributing Members and affiliates. These members come from every sector of the global e-learning community. They include hardware and software vendors, educational institutions, publishers, government agencies, systems integrators, multimedia content providers, and other consortia. The Consortium provides a neutral forum in which members with competing business interests and different decision-making criteria collaborate to satisfy real-world requirements for interoperability and re-use.
IMS develops and promotes the adoption of open technical specifications for interoperable learning technology. Several IMS specifications have become worldwide de facto standards for delivering learning products and services. IMS specifications and related publications are made available to the public at no charge.
- IMS home page
- IMS Best Practice and Implementation Guide v.2.1 Final Specification
- IMS Best Practice and Implementation Guide v.1.3 Public Draft
- IMS Meta-data Best Practice Guide for IEEE 1484.12.1-2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata
- IMS--Accessiblity
- The AccessForAll Meta-data specification is intended to make it possible to identify resources that match a user's stated preferences or needs. These preferences or needs would be declared using the IMS Learner Information Package Accessibility for LIP specification. The needs and preferences addressed include the need or preference for alternative presentations of resources, alternative methods of controlling resources, alternative equivalents to the resources themselves and enhancements or supports required by the user. The specification provides a common language for identifying and describing the primary or default resource and equivalent alternatives for that resource. This work represents open collaboration between working group members from IMS, Dublin Core, IEEE, CEN-ISSS, Eduspecs as well as other groups. The AccessForAll Meta-data specification is a proposed unified approach to matching user needs and preferences with the resources that address those needs and preferences across the participating specifications bodies.
- IMS AccessForAll Meta-data Specification
- LIP Information Model version 1.0 Final Specification: Learner Information Package
- IPR Systems--Intellectual Property Rights
- The main objective of the IPR-Helpdesk is to assist potential and current contractors taking part in Community funded research and technological development projects on intellectual property rights (IPR) issues. The IPR-Helpdesk also advises on Community diffusion and protection rules and other issues relating to IPR in international research projects. Another more global objective of the action is to raise the European research community's awareness of IPR issues, by emphasising their European dimension.
- IPR Systems home page
- IPR Helpdesk Links to IP Resources
- MARC
- A MARC record is a MA chine-Readable Cataloging record. And what is a machine-readable cataloging record? Machine-readable: "Machine-readable" means that one particular type of machine, a computer, can read and interpret the data in the cataloging record. The following pages will explain why this is important and how it is made possible. Cataloging record: "Cataloging record" means a bibliographic record, or the information traditionally shown on a catalog card. The record includes (not necessarily in this order): 1) a description of the item, 2) main entry and added entries, 3) subject headings, and 4) the classification or call number. (MARC records often contain much additional information.)
- Description: Librarians follow the rules in Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed., 2002 revision to compose the bibliographic description of a library item. This "description" is shown in the paragraph sections of a card. It includes the title, statement of responsibility, edition, material specific details, publication information, physical description, series, notes, and standard numbers.
- Main entry and added entries: AACR2 also contains rules for determining "access points" to the record (usually referred to as the "main entry" and "other added entries"), and the form these access points should take. Access points are the retrieval points in the library catalog where patrons should be able to look up the item. In other words, the rules in AACR2 are used to answer questions such as: For this book, should there be entries in the catalog for more than one author or more than one title? Should the title of the series be noted? How should the author's name be written? Is this a "title main entry" item (no author)?
- Subject headings (subject added entries): The librarian uses the Sears List of Subject Headings (Sears), the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), or some other list of standard subject headings to select the subjects under which the item will be listed. Use of an approved list is important for consistency, to ensure that all items on a particular subject are found under the same heading and therefore in the same place in the catalog. For instance, the subject heading list indicates that all books about cats should be assigned the subject CATS. Using this authorized heading eliminates the possibility of listing some books under CATS and others under FELINES. Even if a book is called All About Felines, the subject heading will be typed CATS. That way, all books on that subject will be listed in one place in the catalog for the patron to find. The patron does not have to imagine all the possible synonyms for the word he is looking for.
- Call number-- The librarian uses a Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress classification schedule to select the call number for an item. The purpose of the call number is to place items on the same subject together on the same shelf in the library. Most items are sub-arranged alphabetically by author. The second part of the call number usually represents the author's name, facilitating this subarrangement.
- Understanding MARC home page
- The MARC 21 Standards
- MARC 21 LITE Bibliographic Format: General Introduction
- The MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data is designed to be a carrier for bibliographic information, such as titles, names, subjects, notes, publication information, and physical descriptions of items. The MARC 21 LITE Bibliographic Format is a subset of the markup defined in the full MARC 21 Bibliographic Format. It includes all essential data elements that are needed to create bibliographic descriptions of information items. It is a true subset of the data elements in the complete MARC 21 Format for Bibliographic Data and does not collapse or change any data tagging found in the full format.
- MARC Mapping to MODS version 3.1
- MARC Mapping to MODS (Library of Congress)
- METS-- Metadata Encoding & Transmission Standard
- The METS schema is a standard for encoding descriptive, administrative, and structural metadata regarding objects within a digital library, expressed using the XML schema language of the World Wide Web Consortium. The standard is maintained in the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress, and is being developed as an initiative of the Digital Library Federation.
- METS home page
- METS Schema and Documentation
- METS Primer and Reference Manual
- MIC-- Moving Image Collections Cataloging and Metadata Portal with excellent resources on Content Standards, Descriptive Metadata Schema, Related Metadata Standards, Controlled Vocabularies, Classification Schemes, and Cataloging Tools
- http://mic.imtc.gatech.edu/catalogers_portal/cat_standrslist.htm
- MODS-- Metadata Object Description Schema
- The Library of Congress' Network Development and MARC Standards Office, with interested experts, has developed a schema for a bibliographic element set that may be used for a variety of purposes, and particularly for library applications. As an XML schema, the "Metadata Object Description Schema" (MODS) is intended to be able to carry selected data from existing MARC 21 records as well as to enable the creation of original resource description records. It includes a subset of MARC fields and uses language-based tags rather than numeric ones, in some cases regrouping elements from the MARC 21 bibliographic format. MODS is expressed using the XML schema language of the World Wide Web Consortium. The standard is maintained by the Network Development and MARC Standards Office of the Library of Congress with input from users.
- MODS home page
- MODS Uses and Features
- MPEG-7
- MPEG-7 is an ISO/IEC standard developed by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group), the committee that also developed the Emmy Award winning standards known as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, and the MPEG-4 standard. MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards made interactive video on CD-ROM and Digital Television possible. MPEG-4 is the multimedia standard for the fixed and mobile web enabling integration of multiple paradigms. MPEG-7, formally named "Multimedia Content Description Interface", is a standard for describing the multimedia content data that supports some degree of interpretation of the information meaning, which can be passed onto, or accessed by, a device or a computer code. MPEG-7 is not aimed at any one application in particular; rather, the elements that MPEG-7 standardizes support as broad a range of applications as possible.
- MPEG-7 Overview
- MPEG home page
- MPEG-7 User's Guide
- MPEG-7 DDL
- MIC: Moving Image Collection Cataloging Utility
- MIC Catalog Utility
- MPEG-7: Behind the Scenes
- MPEG Industry Forum
- MPEG-21
- MPEG-21 aims at defining a normative open framework for multimedia delivery and consumption for use by all the players in the delivery and consumption chain. This open framework will provide content creators, producers, distributors and service providers with equal opportunities in the MPEG-21 enabled open market. This will also be to the benefit of the content consumer providing them access to a large variety of content in an interoperable manner.
- MPEG-21 is based on two essential concepts: the definition of a fundamental unit of distribution and transaction (the Digital Item) and the concept of Users interacting with Digital Items. The Digital Items can be considered the “what” of the Multimedia Framework (e.g., a video collection, a music album) and the Users can be considered the “who” of the Multimedia Framework.
- The goal of MPEG-21 can thus be rephrased to: defining the technology needed to support Users to exchange, access, consume, trade and otherwise manipulate Digital Items in an efficient, transparent and interoperable way.
- MPEG-21 Overview
- MPEG home page
- MPEG Industry Forum
- MXF-- Material eXchange Format
- The Material eXchange Format is a new standard created for interchanging media- and metadata. The standard is also promoted by the Pro-MPEG forum, the EBU and the AAF Association. MXF allows user to store metadata and media-data in one file and/or stream. This is achieved by 'wrapping up' all data (media- and metadata) in a standardized hierarchical way. The amount of descriptive metadata, which can be included in an MXF file stream can be quite extensive. Metadata not only include important information on e.g. display size, compression method etc. but also a wide range of descriptive metadata related to the media content and production (e.g. shot location, list of participants etc.).
- MXF Overview (Sony)
- MXF White Paper: Bruce Devlin, Snell & Wilcox, UK
- MXF Background
- http://www.pro-mpeg.org/ [select MXF]
- The MXF Book: Introduction to the Material eXchange Format (Nick Wells, Editor)
- "Working Toegether with MXF." A 4 page PDF executive summary of MXF from the Pro-MPEG Forum
- North Plains Systems
- North Plains’ Telescope 8 product is a feature rich and scalable digital asset management application. It is designed to support multiple lines of business whose reach extends across dispersed geographies or business centers. Its SOAP-based APIs and XML gateways support cost effective integration with existing enterprise investments such as CRM, ERP and ECM systems.
- North Plains Product Overview
- UEN Digital Media Service
- OAI-- Open Archives Initiative
- The Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (referred to as the OAI-PMH) provides an application-independent interoperability framework based on metadata harvesting. There are two classes of participants in the OAI-PMH framework:
- Data Providers administer systems that support the OAI-PMH as a means of exposing metadata; and Service Providers use metadata harvested via the OAI-PMH as a basis for building value-added services.
- OAI home page
- The OAI Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
- Guidelines for Using Resource Identifiers in Dublin Core Metadata and IEEE-LOM
- OAI FAQs
- OAI for Beginners--the Open Archives Forum Online Tutorial
- ODR-- Open Digital Rights Language model for DRM
- The Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL) is a proposed language for the Digital Rights Management (DRM) community for the standardisation of expressing rights information over content. The ODRL is intended to provide flexible and interoperable mechanisms to support transparent and innovative use of digital resources in publishing, distributing and consuming of electronic publications, digital images, audio and movies, learning objects, computer software and other creations in digital form. The ODRL has no license requirements and is available in the spirit of "open source" software.
- ODRL Initiative home page
- ODRL DRM definitions and terms
- PBCore-- Public Broadcasting Metadata Dictionary Project
- The PBCore (Public Broadcasting Metadata Dictionary) was created by the public broadcasting community in the United States of America for use by public broadcasters and related communities. Initial development funding for PBCore was provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The PBCore is built on the foundation of the Dublin Core (ISO 15836), an international standard for resource discovery (dublincore.org), and has been reviewed by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Usage Board.
- PBCore home page
- PBCore User Guide
- PBS Digital Classroom Service
- PBS Digital Classroom, an online service offering streaming video clips and other learning materials via local servers, broadband or wireless connections, will let stations put their names on a customizable PBS education service and promote its use by local school districts. It features the content teachers keep asking for—a searchable database of video clips from PBS signature series such as Nova that is correlated with national and state standards—and provides online professional development courses for teachers.
- Announcement & Overview
- Preservation Metadata
- National Library of Australia
- Overview and home page
- SCHEMAS PROJECT
- Any standardisation activity leads to a point where the stable definition of the standard needs to be published. In traditional standardisation, this happens usually in the form of a paper document that can be ordered from a national standards body or maintenance agency.
- Metadata standards are no different in this respect. They are also published for a human audience to read and understand. Examples are the standards for the library standard MARC21, the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, the publishers’ ONIX standard, or the US National Geographic Data Committee’s Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata, the IEEE Learning Object Metadata standard or the ISO standard ISO/IEC 11179 for specification and standardization of data elements. Many of these standards nowadays are also published as Web documents for easier reference and wider distribution.
- Apart from publication for a human audience, many metadata standardisation activities now see a need for publication of the standard in machine-readable format. In metadata terminology this is commonly referred to as a schema. The underlying notion is that it would be useful for software processes to find the definition of the standard in a format that makes it possible to change their behaviour accordingly. Examples are: a metadata generation tool that can use different standard schemas and configure the user interface accordingly, or a metadata harvester that can configure its indexing mechanism on the basis of knowledge of the schema that some harvested metadata is based on.
- A metadata registry is the mechanism to publish such schemas, which allows their discovery, interpretation and re-use.
- Metadata Watch Report #7 on SCHEMAS Project
- SCHEMAS home page
- SCORM-- Sharable Content Object Reference Model
- SCORM is short for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. It consists of a set of specifications and standards (Note: Technically it consists of profiles of standards or specifications) maintained and documented by the Advanced Distributed Learning initiative. SCORM addresses interoperability between content and the platforms that deliver the content. SCORM derives from work done by the Aviation Industry CBT Committee (AICC), the IMS Global Learning Consortium, the IEEE Learning Technology Standards committee and others. SCORM is widely adopted by learning management systems, learning content management systems, authoring environment, assessment engines and course management systems.
- SCORM Primer
- ADL: Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative
- In the Eye of the SCORM: An introduction to SCORM by Claude Ostyn (Updated Feb 2006)
- SMPTE DMS-1
- Descriptive Metadata Scheme
- From the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, this descriptive metadata scheme, now known as DMS-1, started life as a short list of metadata items that were needed to replicate roughly the equivalent of a tape label. Inevitably, this list grew rapidly in an attempt to create a common initial framework of metadata items that might be implemented by manufacturers in order to achieve interoperability.
- SMPTE Publications
- SMPTE Metadata Registries and Related Items
- DMS-1 Chapter in The MXF Book: Introduction to the Material eXchange Format (Nick Wells, Editor)
- UCME-- Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia
- The Utah Collections Multimedia Encyclopedia is an ever-expanding world wide web site whose contributors include many institutions, organizations and agencies throughout Utah. Utah Collections serves as a storehouse of multimedia items which educators, professors and students can freely use in lesson plans, reports and projects without fear of copyright infringement. UCME developed a comprehensive metadata schema in 1995 in order to describe its assets and to increase their finability over the web.
- UCME home page
- UMAP-- Utah Metadata Application Profile
- The Utah Metadata Application Profile, otherwise known as UMAP, is a collection of descriptors used to identify and depict media items made available for search, review, and download from the Utah Education Network eMedia digital asset management system and website for Utah's educational communities.
- UMAP conforms to the IMS Global Learning Consortium Learning Resource Meta-data Best Practice and Implementation Guide for the IEEE 1484.12.1-2002, Learning Object Metadata Standard: LOMV1.0 Base Schema plus Utah Localized Extensions
- UMAP home page
- United Streaming
- unitedstreaming is a digital video-on-demand service operated by Discovery Education. 50,000 schools and over 20,000,000 students and teachers are known to subscribe and use the unitedstreaming services.
- DISCOVERY EDUCATION STREAMING...
- Rich video and online teaching resources
- Standards-based video-on-demand application shown to increase student achievement
- Practical teacher and student learning resources
- Access to a wide variety of producers—Discovery Channel School, United Learning, Standard Deviants, Weston Woods, and many more
- Options for customization and local control
- New content and features continuously added throughout the year
- Educational Digital Video Library
- USOE Core Curriculum-- Utah State Office of Education
- The Utah State Office of Education maintains a set of core curriculum standards and objectives against which all teaching must comply in the state of Utah for K-12.
- K-12 Core Curriculum home page
- vCard
- vCard is the electronic business card. It is a powerful means of Personal Data Interchange (PDI) that is automating the traditional business card. Whether it's your computer (hand held organizer, Personal Information Manager (PIM), electronic eail application, Web Browser) or telephone, the vCard revolutionizes personal communications.
- vCard FEATURES...
- vCards carry vital directory information such as name, addresses (business, home, mailing, parcel), telephone numbers (home, business, fax, pager, cellular, ISDN, voice, data, video), email addresses and Internet URLs (Universal Resource Locators).
- All vCards can also have graphics and multimedia including photographs, company logos, audio clips such as for name pronunciation
- Geographic and time zone information in vCards let others know when to contact you.
- Of course, vCards support multiple languages
- The vCard spec is transport and operating system independent so you can have vCard-ready software on any computer
- vCards are Internet friendly, standards based, and have wide industry support.
- vCard Overview
- MIME Content-Type for Directory Information
- vCard MIME Directory Profile
- vCard in XML and RDF
- Personal Data Interchange Overview
- ViDe
- The Video Development Initiative (ViDe) promotes the deployment of digital video in research and higher education. Leveraging collective resources and expertise, ViDe advances digital video deployment through promotion and development of interoperable, standardized, and cost-effective technologies.
- ViDe home page
- Digital Rights Management: An Introduction
- Streaming Video Working Group
- VRA Core Categories, version 3.0 (Visual Resources Association)
- The VRA Core Categories, Version 3.0 consist of a single element set that can be applied as many times as necessary to create records to describe works of visual culture as well as the images that document them. The Data Standards Committee followed the "1:1 principle," developed by the Dublin Core community, i.e., only one object or resource may be described within a single metadata set. How the element sets are linked to form a single record is a local database implementation issue. The order of the categories in the VRA Core 3.0 is arbitrary, and local implementations are encouraged to determine their own field sequence that will appropriately describe their data.
- The VRA Core 3.0 is intended as a point of departure—not a completed application. The elements that comprise the Core are designed to facilitate the sharing of information among visual resources collections about works and images. These elements may not be sufficient to fully describe a local collection and additional fields can be added for that purpose. We also recommend the use of qualifiers with certain elements in the VRA Core 3.0 so that the data values contained in the element may be more precisely identified.
- VRA home page
- VRA Core Categories
- Z39.50
- National Information Standards Organization Z39.50 Information Retrieval Protocol (Z39.50/ISO 23950), a computer protocol that can be implemented on any platform, defines a standard way for two computers to communicate for the purpose of information retrieval. A Z39.50 implementation enables one interface to access multiple systems providing the end-user with nearly transparent access to other systems.
- Wikipedia Article on Z39.50 and current developments
- Z39.50 Maintenance Agency
- NISO Press Documentation and Specification for Z39.50
- METADATA 101
- An Introduction to Dublin Core
- Dublin Core Metadata Glossary
- DESIRE Metadata Registry
- Metadata Principles and Practicalities
- Dewey Decimal Classification System
- Metadata Mappings (Crosswalks)
- Academic Metadata Standards: Getting Compliance Without Enforcement
- Application Profiles: Mixing and Matching Metadata Schemas
- Uniform Resource Identifiers( URI): Generic Syntax
- Understanding Metadata: Grace Agnew
- XML + RDF INFO
- Combining RDF and XML Schemas to Enhance Interoperability Between Metadata Application http://archive.dstc.edu.au/RDU/staff/jane-hunter/www10/paper.html
- RDF Framework
- Enhancing Interoperability Via XML Crosswalks
- Interoperability
- XML Schema Part 0: Primer
- XML Schema Part 1: Structures
- XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes
- XML Schema Tutorial by Roger L. Costello, September 2001
- The XML Schema Specification in Context
by Rick Jelliffe, Academia Sinica Computing Centre 2000-02-24 draft only, compares XML Schema with XML DTDs, SGML DTDs, HyTime, and perl regular expressions
- The Current State of the Art of Schema Languages for XML
Rick Jelliffe, paper, XML Asia Pacific 2001, Sydney, Australia. A characterization and comments on schema languages for XML at the end of 2001
- Course "Programming XML in Java" Web site by John Punin, Autumn, 2001
- XML Schema, A Brief Introduction by Ian Stuart, October 26, 2001
- XML Schema tutorials materials: slides, additional materials
by Henry Thompson at XML 99 in Philadelphia (a GCA Conference)
- Using W3C XML Schema by Eric van der Vlist, October 17, 2001
- Schemas for XML by Norman Walsh, July 1, 1999
- Kal Ahmed has created topic maps from the XML Schema family of specifications. The HTML-ized result is now up at
- Danny Vint has created quick reference cards, available at
Navigation Shortcuts
- MODWiki Table of Contents (Main Page)
- ...go to The University of Utah Office of Information Technology website
- ...go to The University of Utah Media On Demand Committee Minutes & Reports
- A Quickie Wiki Guide to Editing Content
