Exploiting the Power of Structured Metadata
orienting description toward a particular audience and purpose
Patrick Wilson describes two “powers” that we might obtain over the world of documents (and
perhaps of information): exploitative control and descriptive control. Exploitative control
provides the “best textual means to an end”; for example, if you wanted to determine how to fix a
leaky faucet, exploitative control would provide information optimized for your plumbing
knowledge and skills, for the faucet at hand, and encompassing of all potential alternatives (e.g.,
this situation is too complicated, go find a plumber instead). Wilson emphasizes that exploitative
control entails some level of appraisal of the information, and that this judgment is situationally
specific and subjective. In contrast, descriptive control enables the retrieval of documents that one
can specify. For example, all documents that are published in English by Patrick Wilson with the
title Two Kinds of Power. According to Wilson, we may believe that we are specifying a
description completely, and yet we typically cannot enumerate all the qualities that we know that
we want (such as a copy of Two Kinds of Power that isn’t excessively torn or stained), let alone
all the qualities that we don’t know that we want.
When we create descriptive infrastructures for information systems (schemas of attributes and
associated values, perhaps), we can attempt to achieve exploitative power and not just descriptive
power. However, attributes that approximate some degree of exploitative control are more
difficult to make consistent and thus interoperable.
To engage these issues in practice, we will attempt to design a preliminary set of attributes and
values that can help iSchool students answer that pressing question: What courses should I take
next semester?
Your mission
Step 1: Design to exploit. (20 minutes)
In a group of around 4 people (there will need to be an even number of groups), devise a set of
attributes and associated values (perhaps specified with controlled vocabularies, perhaps not), to
be used in addition to a course number, official title, and official catalog description, to provide,
for current master’s students in the iSchool, the best possible textual means to this end: what
courses should I take next semester?
You might also consider if you can make the schema applicable to courses (and students) outside
the iSchool, or if you can keep the schema accurate if requirements change, if faculty change, and
so forth.
Document your schema on the page provided (this will be necessary for Step 3.)
Step 2: Limited test for basic interoperability (consistency of entry). (15 minutes)
As individuals, each member of your group should use your schema to describe the same two or
three courses drawn from the list offered in the spring 2012. Then compare to see if you, the
designers, have implemented the schema consistently, or if you need to clarify attribute or value
definitions.
Use the page provided for this task.
Step 3: Second test for basic interoperability. (10 minutes)
Exchange your schema with another group and implement that schema on the same two to three
course instances that the originating group used.
Use the page provided for this task.
Step 4: Integrate schemas to achieve greater interoperability. (15 minutes)
Integrate your schema with that of the group you exchanged with. You may need to compromise
in unifying your approaches. Also, for this phase you need to restrict your new schema to include
no more that one attribute greater than the initial schema with the fewest attributes (that is, if
schema A with 6 attributes and schema B with 8 attributes are being integrated, the unified
schema C can have no more than 7 attributes).
Use the page provided for this task.
Step 5: Evaluate exploitative control. (5 minutes)
In what ways does your integrated schema facilitate the “best textual means to an end”? Do you
think multiple people would be able to use it consistently? Are you convinced that your initial
schema was better?
A Descriptive Schema for iSchool Courses
Document here the attributes and associated values that constitute your descriptive schema.
Records (Instances) Described With Your Group’s Schema
Use your schema to describe two or three courses that will be offered in the iSchool next
semester. (These descriptions are records or instances.)
Course 1:
Course 2:
Course 3:
Records (Instances) Described With Another Group’s Schema
Use another group’s schema to describe two or three courses that will be offered in the iSchool
next semester. (These descriptions are records or instances.)
Course 1:
Course 2:
Course 3:
Compromise Schema Created via Collaboration Between Two Groups
Document here the attributes and associated values that constitute your collaborative
descriptive schema.