D24 - Metadata Watch Report #3

Home

Project

Partners

Metadata Watch Report #3

Section 5 - Domain reports

5.1 Industry sector
5.2 Publishing sector
5.3 Audio-visual sector
5.4 Cultural Heritage sector
5.5 Educational sector
5.6 Academic sector
5.7 Geographical information sector

5.6 Academic sector

Correspondent: Michael Day, UKOLN

5.6.1 Updates

The European Commission funded NEDLIB (Networked European Deposit Library) project has recently published its specification of Metadata for long term preservation. The specification defines core metadata elements for the preservation management of digital documents. As with the Cedars project, the specification generally follows the arrangement of the taxonomy of information objects defined in the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), a draft ISO standard published by the Consultative Committee on Space Data Systems.

5.6.2 Application profiles

Application profiles are schemas that consist of data elements drawn from one or more defined namespaces that, combined in particular ways by implementers, are optimised for particular local applications. In previous 'academic' domain reports, a wide variety of metadata initiatives have been described. Not all of these initiatives fit very well into to the application profile discussion, so only a select few will be included here.In the Internet information gateway area, application profiles can be seen in use within both gateways and the services that broker between them. Increasingly these application profiles tend to be extensions (or refinements) of the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES). For example, the 'minimal set' of elements defined for use in the UK's Resource Discovery Network (RDN) is a small subset of the Dublin Core comprising six elements with recommended data entry guidelines. In the Renardus project, the element set is slightly larger (there are eight elements) but is also - with one exception (Country Code) - defined as a subset of Dublin Core elements.

Metadata initiatives concerned with the development of metadata schemas for digital preservation have had less concern with defining application profiles. However, the outline metadata specification developed by the Cedars project didn't define specific resource discovery elements but assumed that any future fully-developed system would need to consider resource discovery requirements in more detail. The project, therefore, included a subset of unqualified Dublin Core elements to form its preliminary 'Reference Information' for resource discovery.The concept of 'application profiles' is relatively unknown in the various initiatives concerned with defining recordkeeping metadata, but there are some interesting parallels within the range of Australian initiatives. A basic component of the recordkeeping standards developed in Australia is not the DCMES but the Dublin Core-derived Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) Metadata Standard. The AGLS standard has been designed to facilitate the resource discovery and retrieval of Australian government information and services and is maintained by the National Archives of Australia. The standard is itself a type of 'application profile' - based on Dublin Core with four additional defined elements (Audience, Availability, Function and Mandate) - that has been defined for government information and services of all types. Not all of these will be considered 'records' in a recordkeeping context. The AGLS standard is designed to be extensible, so that those with different (or more specific) requirements are able to add additional elements or qualifiers, assuming that the semantics of AGLS elements are not changed and that any mandatory elements in AGLS remain so. Australian recordkeeping metadata initiatives have made a point of maintaining links with the AGLS standard. For example, the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies - also developed and maintained by the National Archives of Australia - inherits concepts from AGLS but contains additional elements specifically related to recordkeeping. While some elements in the Commonwealth recordkeeping metadata set are the same as those in AGLS, many of the other elements extend the AGLS in a significant way. In order to note these extensions, version 1.0 of the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard contains a mapping from the metadata elements defined in that document to the AGLS standard. Similar links with AGLS are also maintained in the Recordkeeping Metadata Schema (RKMS) developed by the Australian SPIRT Recordkeeping Metadata Project. The RKMS was specifically designed for compatibility with Dublin Core, the AGLS standard and the Recordkeeping Metadata Standard for Commonwealth Agencies. The RKMS was defined at a more conceptual level than the Commonwealth recordkeeping metadata standard, but - in common with that standard - the AGLS metadata was viewed essentially as a subset of any metadata set specified for recordkeeping purposes.

In the biological information sector, the main example of application profile type developments is the definition of the Biological Metadata Profile of the Federal Geographic Data Committee's Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM). The Biological Metadata Profile inherits all of the CSDGM elements, but includes additional elements that are able to document information about taxonomy and nomenclature. Another potential example, is the development of a Z39.50 profile for natural history collections and observation data sets known as the Darwin Core (DwC).

The Z39.50 Biology Implementers Group (ZBIG) have developed this profile, and it includes access points for a variety of scientific names and the institutions that hold biological specimens. The profile was developed in a Z39.50 context but there is a hope that the profile may have some wider applicability.

>>Section 5.7 Geographical information

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