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Standards Framework Report #2

[ contents | section 1 | section 3 | section 4 | section 5 | section 6 | section 7 ]

Section 2 - Methodology

To identify the current metadata standardisation activities we have started by looking at the first Standards Framework report (D32) issued in September 2000 and have taken into account the most important parts of that document. In addition, the contributions of the different SCHEMAS workshops were considered to be useful. In this document (D33), 22 standards activities were considered most important for the purposes of SCHEMAS. In this report, the following categories of standards are described:

  • Models, which intend to define an architecture for resources and associated metadata
  • Basic standards, which provide mechanisms that other standards can use
  • Cross-domain standards, which are intended to be used for describing materials from multiple domains
  • Domain-specific standards, which are designed to describe specific material in one particular domain, or to describe materials from a very specific perspective

The following domains are covered in this document:

  • Publishing
  • Audio-visual
  • Cultural heritage
  • Education
  • Research
  • Government, geospatial and environment

The desk research focused on mainly 4 areas:

  • Description of the standardisation activity
  • Goal of the standardisation activity
  • Future plans of the standardisation activity
  • Relationships between the different standardisation activities

However, this research (based on exploring the Web sites of the different standardisation activities) did not always lead to useful results. We have then drawn up an overview containing the name of the initiative, name and co-ordinates of the contact person, the institutions responsible for the initiative and the URL of the Web site where the activity is described.

Since we were in need of in-depth information about those standardisation initiatives, we have chosen the survey method using a questionnaire that was sent to the contact person of the activity. The questions focused, of course, mainly on the 4 major topics we wanted to cover. The results are contained in this document and will also be made available through the SCHEMAS Web site and registry.

Through an e-mail message we have asked the correspondents to fill in the questionnaire and send it back. Not all of the correspondents have replied to our questionnaire.

The descriptions of the standardisation activities in chapter 5 are therefore primarily based on the text on the Web sites referenced plus additional comments from the contact person.

[ contents | section 1 | section 3 | section 4 | section 5 | section 6 | section 7 ]

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