Metadata and Digital Repositories

SIG Meeting Report: Learning and Teaching Scotland, Glasgow 8 March 2004

Report by Phil Barker

A list of attendees and a summary of the evaluation returns are given at the end of this report.

Introduction

Phil Barker gave a brief introduction to the day and to the aims and activities of CETIS. [Introduction to CETIS, powerpoint presentation, 62kB.]

IMS / IEEE CEN/ISSS etc. Update

IMS Learning Resource Metadata

Lorna Campbell gave an update on ongoing metadata work at IMS to update IMS Learning Resource Metadata which will lead to version IMS Metadata 1.3 being alligned with the IEEE LOM. The public draft of IMS Metadata 1.2.2 (which was never ratified) will be withdrawn. Implementations based on IMS Metadata 1.2.1 will still be valid, and an XSL transform will be released to convert metadata instances from IMS Metadata version 1.2.1 to version 1.3. The IMS Technical Board have approved  release of the public draft of Metadata version 1.3, although some comments need to be addressed before this release will take place. Future work for the IMS Metadata Special Interest Group may include building a Metadata FAQ and work with the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. [Lorna's IMS Update, powerpoint presentation, 49kB]

IEEE LOM, IEEE Digital Rights, CEN/ISSS Simple Query Interface

Wilbert Kraan then updated us on recent activity at IEEE and CEN/ISSS.

The XML binding for the IEEE LOM is still in ballot resolution, that is comments which made about the final draft are being addressed.

Another IEEE working group (IEEE LTSC WG4) is looking at requirements for a digital rights expression language for educational and training resources, and comparing these with the functionality offered by general digital rights expression languages such as ODRL and MPEG-21 DREL. (A CETIS article on the IEEE call for requirements is available.

The bulk of Wilbert's presentation was taken up with discussion about a proposal for a CEN/ISSS workshop agreement on Simple Query Interface (SQI). SQI aims to provide a lightweight specification for passing queries between systems either in synchronous or asynchronous mode and on either a client-server or peer-to-peer architecture, and without specifying a transport mechanism or query language (again, there is a CETIS article giving more information). Discussion centred on the overlap between SQI and  Z39.50 and SRW/U, with the suggestion that SQI should have built on these.

[Wilbert's slides on SQI and IEEE LOM XML, pdf file (125kB)]

IMS VDEX and RLI Update

Phil Barker gave an progress update on two IMS specifications relevant to the group: Vocabulary Definition and Exchange, version 1.0 of which has just been released; and Resource List Interoperability, the public draft of which is being written. The report details the information model for VDEX (highlighting changes from the public draft) and gives an outline of the possible XML binding for RLI. [The full report as a powerpoint file (157kB)]

Sharing Models for Eprints and Learning Objects

Jane Barton and Fabrio Simeoni of the Centre for Digital Library Research gave a talk about interoperability between institutional eprint archives. Their experience was drawn from the HaIRST project, which was funded under the JISC FAIR (Facilitating Access to Institutional Resources) programme.  HaIRST is a collaborative project between 3 Universities and 10 colleges around Scotland which has been investigating the means of setting up linked repositories. The presentation gave an overview of the aims fo the FAIR programme and HaIRST, and explained how these relate to similar issues encountered when encoraging the use and interoperability of learning object repositories. Models for creating and sharing metadata were discussed, in particular the collaborative creation of metadata and cross-searching versus harvesting strategies. The presenters spoke in favour of having distributed repositories which shared metadata via OAI-PMH and devolving responsibility to an institutional level rather than having having a centralised repository. [The full presentation is available as a powerpoint file on the HaIRST website.]

News and Announcements

UK LOM Core

Lorna Campbell gave an update on the UK LOM Core, the second draft of which is almost complete. The mandated element set has not been changed, though there are discussions about whether there should be some minor changes to which parts of the vCard are mandatory. There have been changes to the advice on identifiers to bring the UK LOM Core in to line with discussions hosted by CETIS last year, there are also changes to the names of the vocabularies used for Educational Context and Educational Level. In discussion after the presentation there was a suggestion that advice on a vocabulary for learning resource types needs to be made more specific and that implementers should be discouraged from creating new learning resource type vocabularies.

[Lorna's UK LOM Core slides, powerpoint (51kB)]

IMS QTI Metadata

Rowin Cross of the CETIS Assessment SIG gave an overview of the metadata issues facing the IMS group who are working on version 2 of the IMS Question and Test Interoperability specification. Rather than having its own metadata vocabulary, as was the case in version 1 of the spec, the aim is for QTI 2.0 to use the LOM, with some extensions (learning resource type was an issue again) and some LOM elements being deprecated. Anyone interested in this work should contact Rowin via the Assessment SIG.

[Rowin's Metadata for QTI v2.0 powerpoint presentation (123kB)]

JISC IEMSR

Pete Johston announced a new project, the JISC Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry, which UKOLN are heading (with ILRT at Bristol). This project aims to build on previous work on metadata registries (see for example the MEG Registry) to explore the needs for and develop a shared registry of metadata application profiles used by  services in the JISC Information Environment. More details can be found on UKOLN's IEMSR page.

Stor Curam: a storehouse of learning resources for social care

Sarah Currier presented an introduction to a new project, Stor Curam, which is funded by the Scottish Institute for Excellence in Social Work Education. Sarah, who used to work on the CETIS Educational Content SIG, is the project librarian for this project, which will build, populate and encourage the use of a web web-based learning object repository for Social Work. The repository will use intraLibrary and will be searchable and browsable through a social work education vocabulary that will be developed as part of the project. Sarah gave an overview of the approach the project plans to take in populating the repository with learning objects and encouraging thier use, and in developing the taxonomy for browsing.

[Sarah's powerpoint presentation on Stor Curam (1,486kB)]

Learning Outcome Metadata

Rachel Ellaway gave a presentation based on work describing learning outcomes in Scottish Medical programmes. Rachel described how Scottish medical schools have a agreed common learning outcomes (see scottishdoctor.org), although they do not share a common curriculum. Rachel spoke about describing these outcomes, and about mapping them to other descripitons of learning outcomes (e.g. the General Medical Council's Tomorrow's Doctor), and the issues of semantic drift which could arise if mappings between several such vocabularies were followed.

Jisc Digital Rights Management Project

Charles Duncan of Intrallect  Ltd introduced a new JISC funded study on digital right management issues which arise from the creation, storage and reuse of learning objects. He examined in some detail what is meant by reuse, which can extend to disaggregation and inclusion of some parts of a learnign object in other learning objects. The study will be wide ranging and look (among other things) technical, legal and cultural aspects of rights management. The study will report in July, anyone interested is referred to the jisc-drm Jiscmail list and the Intrallect DRM study website.

[Charles' powerpoint presentation on the DRM project (238kB)]

Attendees

Evaluation Summary

A summary of the evaluation forms returned is available for those interested.

Many thanks to all who attended, especially to those who gave presentations and to those at LT Scotland who helped with the organisation.