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Glossary

Standards Framework Report #1

[ contents | section 1 | section 2 | section 3 | section 4 | section 6 | section 7 ]

Section 5 - Synthesis

5.1 Domains covered

Following the classification of domains in the Metadata Watch we have categorised the 21 standardisation initiatives as follows:

Industry

This domain is characterised by activities with a focus on business information systems for commerce, especially business-to-business commerce on the Web, i.e. the supply chain.

BSR can be categorised in this domain.

Publishing

MPEG 21 and ISO TC46/SC9 can be categorised in this domain.

Audio-Visual

This sector deals with staggeringly large amounts of information of which only a portion is textual. In addition, the means by which this content is distributed varies greatly, i.e. terrestrial broadcast, Internet, and CD-ROM and DVD.

Activities in this domain are MPEG 7 and MPEG 4 and SMPTE.

Cultural Heritage

The VRA Core Record, ISO TC46/SC4 and MARC fall under this domain.

Education and Training

The IMS project, LOM and the CEN/ISSS Workshop on Learning Technologies fall under this domain.

This domain includes non-commercial laboratories, corporate research, and professional societies.

CERIF can be categorised in this domain.

Academia

NetCDF can be categorised in this domain.

Geographic information

PDS falls under this domain.

All

Dublin Core, JTC1/SC32/WG2 and RDF are all not domain specific.

Other

This domain includes, but is not limited to, environmental work, government (including military), GILS, healthcare (CEN TC 251), mail and delivery, and transport and logistics. (GELOS)

All the domains are covered. Graphically the categorisation into domains can be pictured as follows:

Since the population consists of only 21 initiatives, it is hard to draw general conclusions. However, because we have chosen these 21 initiatives based on the criteria of being influential and well-known, we can say that most activities are taking place in the domains all, audio-visual, education and training, other, and cultural heritage. Some domains might be less in need of metadata standardisation and therefore know fewer initiatives. Another reason for low activity in certain domains might be resulting from more co-operation and thus less diffusion of activities.

Of these 21 initiatives 6 are platforms and together they represent a total of 89 standards. Looking at all these 89 standards together we see that most are occurring in the domains of cultural heritage and publishing and rights management.

Once we have include a larger number of the identified metadata standardisation initiatives we will be able to draw more valid conclusions about the domains in which the majority of metadata standardisation activities take place.

The types of material on which the standardisation initiatives are focused are shown in table 2. We only looked at those standardisation initiatives for which we have received a filled out questionnaire.

Table 2: Type of material

Looking at table 2 we can conclude that a wide range of materials are covered but that there is no clear bias towards one of them.

The diagram below shows the interrelationship between some of the initiatives, as far as could be traced from answers to the questionnaire and the desk research.

The Dublin Core plays a central role. RDF does not, but that might be because RDF is a much more recent effort than the Dublin Core. Expected is that RDF will in the near future influence the standardisation initiatives that are currently still in the developing phase or those that are newly initiated. Noticeable is also that apparently within the domain education there is co-operation between separate initiatives since LOM and IMS are liaised.

Table 3. Graphical representation of interrelationships

Dublin Core and RDF are strongly related through the fact that there is a substantial overlap in the people who work on those two initiatives.

GELOS claims to be liaised to the Dublin Core while the Dublin Core did not mention to be liaised to GELOS.

The ISO 11179 liases with many other ISO activities. The ISO standards from Technical Committee 46 are also included in the Standards Framework.

In conclusion, the metadata-related standards considered in this Standards Framework Report are biased towards the domains of Cultural heritage and Publishing and rights management. The general or non-domain specific initiatives are also well represented. The domain Cultural heritage includes library and bibliographic information, which is the area where metadata was traditionally most needed. Although it is hard to draw general conclusions from this small population, this Standards Framework Report will provide implementers with an insight into the activities taking place within the domains.

There is, fortunately, a tendency visible of standardisation activities to build relationships between them. Ideally, this emerging network of standards should lead to some form of harmonisation or co-operation in the near future. Dublin Core aims to play a central role in this landscape of activities by inviting specific domains to participate in the definition and further development of this standard.

[ contents | section 1 | section 2 | section 3 | section 4 | section 6 | section 7 ]

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