Group Project Report
LIS6210: Organization of Knowledge
Dr. Joan E. Beaudoin
April 13, 2012
Group Members:
Becky Applin, April Conant, Matthew Hostetler, Aubrey Maynard, Donna Sherrill
Applin, Conant, Hostetler, Maynard, Sherrill2
Individual Responsibility Report
Group Project
April Conant Task 1- Her responsibility was to create the consensus framework for the fields
needed to adequately describe the items in the collection. She had help editing and justified the
decisions regarding the chosen fields and descriptive definitions. She was also responsible for
writing the report section for Consensus Field Framework.
Becky Applin Task 2- Her responsibility was to create the consensus report for each of the 15
objects that were chosen to be cataloged and indexed (excel file). She collaborated with Aubrey
Maynard on the content. She also was responsible to writing the Report section for Consensus
Record Creation.
Aubrey Maynard Task 3- Her responsibility was to identify vocabularies and tools useful for
indexing and developing descriptions for each item. She also collaborated with Becky Applin on
how to handle this step. She was also responsible for writing the Report section for the
Consensus Vocabularies and Tools.
Donna Sherrill Task 4- Her responsibility was to write the Individual Responsibility Report on
how the work was divided and what each individual was responsible for and why. She also was
responsible for the introduction outlining the project, and the conclusion discussing what was
learned from the experience. She was responsible for creating the outline of the project,
organizing the workload on Wikispaces, and she posted the Status Report on Blackboard.
Matthew Hostetler Task 5- His responsibility was to create the Power Point slides with an audio
track. He was also responsible for Posting Step 1 of the project on Blackboard. He also kept up
with meetings, posted a timeline for the project on Wikispaces and communicated with
members for updates. Mathew was responsible for editing or revising the introduction outlining
the project and the conclusion. He also organized and set up format for final project to be
submitted.
Reason for each Responsibility
What our group came up with was a snowball workload. April started the roll since she
came up with the idea and she felt certain in her element choices. Using the consensus
element table, Rebecca and Aubrey created the excel spreadsheet together because their part
one’s were similar and what the group felt confident in. They also carefully considered the
controlled vocabulary under Aubrey’s direction. Then an organized Donna took on task 4, and a
creative Matthew signed on for the Power Point Slides and Presentation. We all fell into our
parts and helped the group bring the project together.
Applin, Conant, Hostetler, Maynard, Sherrill3
Introduction:
The aim of this group project is to gain awareness and experience in working as a group with a
digital environment. In this environment, the group experienced earnest job responsibilities as an
cataloging/metadata librarian by developing a metadata schema to be used to hold the descriptive
details of items belonging to fencing coach Bela Imregi's collection. By group consensus, the project was
divided into smaller parts and given out to pairs of members - one to rough draft and another to revise.
As with many partnerships, the roles are not strictly defined, but fluid and adaptive. Each part was then
submitted online to the group, either by email, blackboard’s file exchange or by a posting on Wikispaces,
which is where the entire group could assimilate it into the project reported below.
Particular approaches were used to work though the development of the project that included
using Wayne State University's LIS6210: Organization of Knowledge's Blackboard, emails communication
and file distribution, Wikispaces, and Wimba. Though these collaboration tools may seem disjointed and
lacking universal versatility, the group found each to be accessible online without prior training or with
monetary costs.
This report presents a group consensus and findings for a metadata schema collection, which
includes the following tasks: Consensus Field Framework, Consensus Record Creation, and Consensus
Vocabularies and Tools. Attention to the work process, communication, and cataloging process will be
defined and explained in each section. An analysis of the project itself and the group's activities and
tasks within the development of the project will also be noted.
Consensus Field Framework:
To create the Elements table, a little bit from every group member's elements from Step 1 of the
group project (individually created metadata schema of the Imregi's collection) was used. Everyone
seemed to be on consensus to use the Dublin Core Elements, so April Conant created the table to reflect
that. She pulled specifically from Becky Applin's Description and Identifier elements for her
representation of both sides of the items. Becky Applin represented items well in the excel spreadsheet
of Step 1. The rest of the elements were tweaked through emails back and forth with group members
and April Conant until the table settled the way it looks here. It stands as a creation of collaboration
cooperation and not just the unique perspectives that were represented in Step 1.
Applin, Conant, Hostetler, Maynard, Sherrill4
Consensus Field Framework Table:
Dublin Core Element
Contributor
Original Field Name
Collector
Coverage
Description
Creator
Creator
Date
Date
Description
<r> Description
<v> Description
Format
Measurements
Identifier
<r> URL
<v> URL
Language
Language
Publisher
Contact
Relation.Owner
Contact
Relation.Owner.Alternate.Name
Rights
Alternative Name
Collector
Source
Source
Subject
Subject
Title
Accession #
Type
Description
Definition of Element
An individual, organization, or service
responsible for making contributions to the
items content
The extent or scope of the content.
Coverage will typically include a place name
or geographic co-ordinates; a period label,
date, or date range; or jurisdiction. Use
controlled vocabulary.
An individual, organization, or service
primarily responsible for making the
resource.
Date associated with an event. Typically, this
will be associated with the creation or
availability of the resource. Qualified
elements are used to disambiguate, but only
if available. Follows the YYYY-MM-DD
format.
Details regarding the item; when there are
images of both front and back of the item,
the front side will be described first
Media-type or dimensions, as well as size
and measurements. Used to determine the
software, hardware or other equipment
needed to display or operate the resource.
Use controlled vocabulary.
An unambiguous reference to the resource
using a formal identification system ex: URI,
URL, DOI, and ISBN.
The language of the resource. This is
identified by a two-letter language code
with optional sub tags. A controlled
vocabulary such as RFC 4646 [RFC4646] is
used.
An individual, organization, or service
responsible for making the resource
available.
A reference to a related resource. Used to
point users to resources of related context.
Owner of the resource aliases
Information about rights held in and over
the resource. (i.e.: copyright holder to the
image.)
A Reference to a resource from which the
present resource is derived/found.
To describe the spatial or temporal topic of
the resource, use the Coverage Element.
Typically, this will be a name by which the
resource is formally known.
The nature or genre of the content of the
resource. Use controlled vocabulary.
Applin, Conant, Hostetler, Maynard, Sherrill5
Consensus Record Creation:
The five group members, Becky Applin, April Conant, Matthew Hostetler, Aubrey Maynard, and
Donna Sherrill first contact was through email immediately after the group list was posted. The group
members shared their part one documents readily and decided an initial meeting should be held on
blackboard’s virtual classroom where most members were present. This meeting was successful in that
the tasks were split up and our plan for the assignment took shape.
Drawing from April Conant’s Consensus Field Framework, group members Aubrey Maynard and
Becky Applin volunteered for the Consensus Record Creation. Aubrey and Becky both initially created
their own record of objects from the group part 1 and were very similar in their style and structure, thus
working together there were very few discrepancies. The few discrepancies were if there were a source
and a subject, and which location to use for coverage.
Aubrey pointed out how the source and subject could be easily accessed through the
descriptions and the elements themselves. Becky also described how the date of the Olympics should
be used for the coverage location. With these few discrepancies in mind, the two records were
presented to the group for a consensus. A group consensus was not reached. The other members
refrained from participating in this portion and appeared to trust Aubrey and Becky with choosing and
defining the correct record objects. As paired partners, Maynard and Applin easily resolved the
discrepancies through talking and exchanging reference information.
Having all members’ part one tables at hand made the task of record creation both interesting
and challenging. Everyone’s part one was different. Making the correct choices without hearing group
input was somewhat demanding. It was difficult not to rely solely on your own part one. This can be
partly contributed to the online setting of the project itself. Schedules, time zones, latency from email
and vigilance in checking Blackboard, emails, and Wikispaces all added to what would normally be
consider minor alterations.
Aubrey Maynard and Becky Applin noted that this project was a positive experience to work
with another person on the record creation. It was a very beneficial exchange of ideas due to individual
perspectives and information behind the reasoning. Also, as aforementioned, it was interesting to see
the different ways people recorded these objects in part one.
Consensus Vocabularies and Tools:
As with any group project a consensus must be found to move forward. A consensus of
vocabularies and tools for the metadata schema of BelaImregi's fencing collection in its structure that
vital step. As individuals, we created a metadata schema for the items portrayed online.1Each member
unanimously used elements based off of the Dublin Core Elements when we described the items on our
own. Our element definitions are based off of the Dublin Core Elements from Assignment Two for LIS
1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bejapa/sets/72157623436709816/
Applin, Conant, Hostetler, Maynard, Sherrill6
6210 at Wayne State University. The vital tool is the Dublin Core Element Definitions located at
http://www.dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Many of the referenced sites from the Dublin Core
Elements were used to create a uniform description for several of the elements in our table.
April Conant incorporated the element definitions from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's
Using Dublin Core - The Elements2and the element vocabulary information from GBIF Vocabularies'
DCMI Type Vocabulary3 into the element table. Ed. A. Phillips' Tags for Identifying Languages (2006)
was used for the controlled language descriptions.4Here, location names were formatted by use of The
Getty Research Institute's Thesaurus of Geographic Names.5 Revision and corrections were also
incorporated though advice and information from the LIS 6210 Office Hours for weeks four and ten.The
final vocabularies were polished by the additional information and biography of BelaImregi through the
British online newspaper The Independent from September 17, 19976.
Conclusion:
This process has broadened our understanding about how to handle the development of a
consensus metadata framework for a collection and consensus records. The experience has also
exposed us to various aspects of a working environment, as it relates to a cataloging/metadata librarian.
Of note is the working environment of online collaboration. The uses of several online tools from email
to the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative have been vital to making this group project come together. The
knowledge that we have gained by immersing ourselves in common to uncommon tools for a common
goal is worthwhile. Inherent to that is the difficulty to reach group consensus about projects and work
tasks. Our attempt helped us understand, just how challenging formulating data, collaborating as a
group and organizing a project can be. Every member has noted how miscommunication and at times
digital isolation has made what may seem simple much more difficult. Point of view and understanding
of part one created discrepancies and those discrepancies became the challenges the group had to
overcome. How we handled the development of the consensus metadata framework for the collection
and records, depended heavily on how well we communicated as a group. It can be argued that we
adequately agreed upon data to be used, decided upon responsibilities and came up with a more
effective project report, but like any lesson it was not without faults. Moreover, it was clear, even
redundant, communication that tied members online to accomplish what was needed. The "ball was not
dropped" and there is a sense of pride for work through adversity.
2
http://dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/elements.shtml
http://vocabularies.gbif.org/vocabularies/dcmitype
4
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4646.txt
5
http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/index.html
6
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/obituary-bela-imregi- 1239600.html?printService=print.
3