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Glossary

Metadata Watch Report #1

[ contents | section 1 | section 2 ]

Section 3 - Domain reports

3.1 Industrial sector
3.2 Publishing sector
3.3 Audio-visual sector
3.4 Educational sector
3.5 Academic sector
3.6 Research sector
3.7 Geographical information sector

3.4 Educational sector

Basically, there are four important metadata initiatives that dominate the education domain:

1. IEEE LTSC LOM: The IEEE Learning Technology Standardization Committee includes a number of working groups, that deal with issues ranging from a Learning Technology Architecture to work on a Learner Model. Metadata activities are regrouped in the Learning Object Metadata group. This three year old initiative has developed an elaborate metadata scheme with a hierarchical structure. Data elements are regrouped under categories (general, lifecycle, metametadata, technical, educational, rights, relation, annotation and classification). Especially relevant in this domain is the educational category, that includes elements such as:

• interactivity type (active versus expositive)
• learning resource type (exercise, simulation, questionnaire, etc.)
• interactivity level (from very low to very high)
• semantic density (idem)
• intended end user role (teacher, author, learner, manager)
• context (primary education to vocational training)
• typical age range
• difficulty (from very low to very high)
• typical learning time
• description
• language of the typical intended user

1. DC-Education: Since August 1999, the Dublin Core community is investigating the use of Dublin Core for description of educational materials. Since november 1999, a new group has been formed to investigate the use of the Dublin Core metadata set in education and training. That group had a first meeting at DC-7, with representatives from the IEEE LTSC LOM group, and had a first real meeting in February 2000.

The present recommendation is to add a number of data elements to the DC set, explicitly borrowing from the IEEE LTSC LOM work. Whereas the use of namespaces to achieve semantic and syntactic interoperability between DC-Education and IEEE LTSC LOM is mentioned, it remains somewhat unclear how this would be organized in practice. Moreover, if such an approach would be operational, then there would be little value to DC adopting LOM elements, as any combination of these elements would be acceptable anyway.

2. CEN/CENELEC ISSS LTWS: Since March 1999, CEN/CENELEC ISSS has set up a new workshop, on Learning Technologies. In a first phase, two projects have been started. A workplan for future European work in this area is being finalized. That workplan lists a number of concrete recommendations. Metadata related such recommendations include:

• promotion of standards
• taxonomies and vocabularies
• profiling of LOM for specific communities
• bindings of LOM to RDF and XML\
• internationalization of LOM

1. Recently, a new subcommittee has been set up under the umbrella of the ISO/IEC JTC1 Joint Technical Committee. As far as formal standardization goes, this venue represents the top in the hierarchy, with a global scope and world-wide recognition. The IEEE and CEN both have formal relationships with the ISO/IEC JTC1. In fact, both IEEE LTSC and CEN/CENELEC ISSS LTWS have liaison status with ISO/IEC JTC1.

It is interesting to note that, whereas the IEEE LTSC LOM was originally developped specifically for the domain of education and training, and is becoming gradually more and more deployed for metadata of general resources, it is rather the other way around with DC-Education, as the Dublin Core metadata element set was orginally developped for general resources, and is now being adapted for the specific field of education and training.

All in all, the most pressing issue for these two organizations is to convince the field of education and training that IEEE LTSC LOM and DC-Education will not "fight for world domination", as this will prevent a large portion of the potential users of metadata in this field from starting any activity whatsoever. As those potential actors will prefer to wait "until the battle is over", the net result will be a hindrance to the uptake of metadata in this field, something that would be detrimental to both DC-Education and IEEE LTSC LOM. It seems that at least some of the more important actors in both communities are aware of these ramifications.

Another important issue at this moment is the finalization of LOM: there seems to be an agreement that the core of the specification is not evolving dramatically anymore, but that most time now seems to be spent on developing the exact standards wording. As this is a consensus based initiative, the time involved is somewhat difficult to estimate and impossible to control by the LOM group.

Work in the CEN/CENELEC ISSS LTWS seems to be moving faster, as there is a report being finalized after no more than 12 months of operation. On the other hand, it now remains to be seen what the member state representatives will decide. It seems quite likely that funding will be provided for the implementation of the recommendations. In the mean time, limited funding still remains to continue work on the localization of LOM.

How soon the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 will start working in earnest, specifically on educational metadata, is somewhat unclear. The next meeting is in September 2000, and it doesn't look like any serious work will happen beforehand.

The main trend is that awareness in the sector of education and training on the issue of learning technology standardization in general and on metadata specifically, is definitely growing fast.

On the other hand, with awareness of the importance of these issues also seems to grow the confusion and misunderstandings. For many interested parties, the difference in status between for instance consortia (that can build their own internal specifications) and accredited standards organizations (that work mostly under an open consensus-based model) is not at all clear.

And, as has happened so often before with educational technologies, there is a definite danger that expectations are being raised unreallistically high, either by conscious action from those involved in the development of these technologies, or because of the genuine enthousiasm of all those involved.

To a certain extent, the standardization bodies mentioned above all have overlapping activities. On the other hand, the CEN/CENELEC ISSS LTWS has explicitly stated that it would not duplicate any effort going on elsewhere, unless that work would not take into account genuine European needs and requirements. The current localization work of the IEEE LTSC LOM, taking place in the LTWS, proofs that this approach can indeed work in practice.

There is also considerable overlap in the work of the different consortia (ADL, AICC, ARIADNE, IMS, etc.) that work on actual implementations of the metadata related and other standards. This does not seem to be a problem, the less so as all these consortia contribute to the development of the standards, and then adapt them to the needs of their constituencies, a process referred to as 'profiling' in the standards world. In fact, having several independent implementations of the metadata standards is a good thing, as it increases the probability that problems or shortcomings will be identified early on. It would be most useful though to have some interoperability development taking place now that the specifications and implementations are maturing, so as to prove that the standard does indeed serve its ultimate goal.

>>Section 3.5 Academic sector

[ contents | section 1 | section 2 ]

Maintained by: UK Office for Library and Information Networking (UKOLN)
Last updated: 07 August 2001