DCMI Education Community
Activities for 2007
Sarah Currier
Co-Moderator, DCMI Education Community
Product Manager, Intrallect Ltd
s.currier@intrallect.com
CETIS Metadata & Digital Repositories SIG Meeting, 16.04.07
University of Manchester, UK
Overview of Presentation
1. DCMI Education Community –
background
2. DCMI and IEEE LOM
3. DC-Ed Application Profile
1. Use cases
2. Vocabularies
3. Registering vocabularies and APs
4. LOM elements for the DC-Ed AP
4. Join DC-Ed!
Dublin Core Educational Work
DCMI Working Groups -> Communities
• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative had “Working Groups”
co-ordinated by “Chairs”
• Working Groups organised their activities via e-mail
discussion and F2F meetings
• Working Groups reported on their activities on the DCMI
website
• In 2006 the Working Groups were re-named
“Communities”, and Chairs are now called “Moderators”
• Communities have wikis now for collaborative working,
while keeping e-mail discussion lists and providing more
static web pages with formal results of work
Dublin Core Educational Work
DCMI Education Community
• The DCMI Education Working Group is now the DCMI
Education Community
• For short, I’ll just call it DC-Ed
• Co-Moderators: Diane Hillmann (Cornell University); me
• I replaced Stuart Sutton of the University of
Washington, who is still very active in DCMI, including
DC-Ed
Website: http://www.dublincore.org/groups/education/
Wiki: http://dublincore.org/educationwiki/
JISCmail list:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/DC-EDUCATION.html
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Charter
“The DCMI Education Community is a forum for
individuals and organizations involved in
implementing Dublin Core and other learning
resource metadata in the education domain.
The objective of the Community is to promote
interoperability within the domain through the
use of standard metadata and consensus good
practices.”
Dublin Core Educational Work
NOTE:
“The DCMI Education Community is a forum for
individuals and organizations involved in
implementing Dublin Core and other learning
resource metadata in the education domain.
The objective of the Community is to promote
interoperability within the domain through the
use of standard metadata and consensus good
practices.”
Dublin Core Educational Work
DCMI and IEEE LOM
• There is an oft-noted cross-over of interests between the DCEd and IEEE LOM communities of practice
• Various initiatives have been afoot for a few years to bring
about some coherence, and we hope, interoperability,
amongst all those communities wishing to use learning
resource metadata
• The DC-Ed Community provides a focal point for such
collaboration from the Dublin Core side
• There are two main areas of work:
– The Joint DCMI / IEEE LTSC Task Force
Wiki: http://dublincore.org/educationwiki/DCMIIEEELTSCTaskforce
- The DC Education Application Profile
Wiki: http://dublincore.org/educationwiki/DC_2dEducation_20Application_20Profile
Dublin Core Educational Work
DCMI and IEEE LOM
The Joint DCMI / IEEE LTSC Task Force
- Reported on earlier by Pete Johnston
- Takes a high-level, future-proofing view of mapping IEEE LOM and
Dublin Core, i.e. at the Abstract Model level
The DC Education Application Profile
- I’ll report on this now
- Looking at how Dublin Core as it is can be used to describe learning
resources (or educational aspects of any resource)
- Includes looking at how some elements and vocabularies from the
IEEE LOM might be used with Dublin Core
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile: Background
•
Dublin Core has 15 elements, describing 15 properties of resources:
title, subject, description, type, source, relation, coverage, creator,
publisher, contributor, rights, date, format, identifier, language
NB: When DC people say “properties” they usually mean the same thing as LOM
people do when they say “elements” or MARC people do when they say “fields”
•
•
•
These 15 properties can be used exactly as is (“Simple Dublin Core”)
or they may be extended (“Qualified Dublin Core”: e.g. for date,
qualifications can be: created, valid, available, issued, modified,
accepted, copyrighted, submitted).
They may also be qualified by using specific controlled vocabularies
When using Qualified Dublin Core there are some additional properties
available, including:
– InstructionalMethod (obviously this is education-specific)
– Audience (which can be education-specific, and in an educational context
may be further refined by EducationLevel)
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
• The DC-Ed Application Profile aims to provide a “modular” or
“thin” AP to support description of the educational aspects of
resources
• This means that it will focus on the educationally significant
properties available in Dublin Core + any other educational
properties, e.g. from the IEEE LOM
• Therefore it will not define or give guidelines for usage of
properties / elements that may be covered elsewhere
• This will enable people to “plug in” the AP with other APs they
are using, e.g. the Libraries AP, the ePrints AP described
earlier by Julie Allinson, or a local AP
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
For 2006/2007, DC-Ed is focusing on the
following aspects of the DC-Ed AP:
1.
2.
3.
Gathering use cases specifying requirements for the AP
Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
Looking at LOM elements and vocabularies to
determine which (if any) are candidates for inclusion in
the AP
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
1.
Gathering use cases specifying requirements for the AP
We have three use cases available on the DC-Ed wiki:
http://dublincore.org/educationwiki/Use_20Cases
-
See handout
Discussion / feedback / any further use cases?
Join the JISCmail list or contact Diane Hillmann
directly if you have any feedback: dih1@cornell.edu
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
We are focusing this year on vocabularies for
InstructionalMethod
Type
We are looking at jurisdictional and non-jurisdictional
vocabularies (i.e. local and global)
We are looking at what criteria we have for vocabularies, i.e. how
do we decide what vocabularies we put forward to DC-Ed
implementers? What standards / criteria should be used?
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
InstructionalMethod Usage Guide:
“Element
Description: A process, used to engender knowledge, attitudes and skills,
that the resource is designed to support. Instructional Method will typically
include ways of presenting instructional materials or conducting instructional
activities, patterns of learner-to-learner and learner-to-instructor interactions,
and mechanisms by which group and individual levels of learning are
measured. Instructional methods include all aspects of the instruction and
learning processes from planning and implementation through evaluation and
feedback.
Guidelines for content creation:
Best practice is to use terms from controlled vocabularies, whether developed for
the use of a particular project or in general use in an educational context.”
http://www.dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/elements.shtml
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
Type Usage Guide:
“Element Description: The nature or genre of the content of the resource. Type
includes terms describing general categories, functions, genres, or
aggregation levels for content. Recommended best practice is to select a value
from a controlled vocabulary (for example, the DCMIType vocabulary ). To
describe the physical or digital manifestation of the resource, use the FORMAT
element.
Guidelines for content creation:
If the resource is composed of multiple mixed types then multiple or repeated Type
elements should be used to describe the main components.
Because different communities or domains are expected to use a variety of type
vocabularies, best practice to ensure interoperability is to include at least one
general type term from the DCMIType vocabulary in addition to the domain
specific type term(s), in separate Type element iterations.”
http://www.dublincore.org/documents/usageguide/elements.shtml
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
Gathering vocabularies:
JISC-CETIS Pedagogical Vocabularies Review: Report 1
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/PedVocab_VocabsReport_v0p11.doc
-
-
-
In 2006 JISC-CETIS published three review documents as a result of a study
on the current landscape relating to pedagogical vocabularies.
Report 1 is the Pedagogical Vocabularies Review, which inventories existing
pedagogical vocabularies, including flat lists, taxonomies, thesauri, ontologies
and classification schemes, relevant to the UK post-16 and HE education
sectors, with reference to current work in Europe.
The pedagogical vocabularies described in this report include those that cover
mainly instructional method, but due to the blurring of the two areas in some
vocabularies, resource type as related to education is also covered.
DC-Ed work and some relevant American vocabularies are also included.
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
Gathering vocabularies:
Becta Vocabulary Bank
http://www.becta.org.uk/vocab/
-
Aims to be the premier repository for controlled curriculum vocabularies used
in UK education.
These vocabularies are freely available to providers of digital learning
resources to the education sector.
At present, the vocabularies mainly cover curriculum areas by subject.
However, it is likely that other educational vocabularies will be submitted in
future.
For instance, the Adult and Community Learning vocabulary currently held in
the Bank includes sub-nodes for Teaching Resources by Type, and for Course
Delivery, which includes instructional method terms.
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
Gathering vocabularies:
DCMI Type Vocabulary: collection; dataset; event; image; interactive
resource; moving image; physical object; service; software; sound;
still image; text
IEEE LOM learningResourceType vocabulary: exercise; simulation;
questionnaire; diagram; figure; graph; index; slide; table; narrative
text; exam; experiment; problem statement; self-assessment;
lecture
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for the AP
-
We are currently discussing via the JISCmail list a set
of criteria for selecting vocabularies for inclusion
Diane Hillmann put forward 4 criteria:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The vocabulary is openly available
The vocabulary includes definitions
A standard encoding is available for the vocabulary
URIs have been assigned to the terms and/or the
terms are registered.
See handout and discuss!
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
2. Defining a candidate list of vocabularies for
the AP: A detour into registering
vocabularies:
1. URIs have been assigned to the terms
and/or the terms are registered.
http://metadataregistry.org/
http://metadataregistry.org/vocabulary/show/id/24.html
http://sandbox.metadataregistry.org/
Dublin Core Educational Work
DC-Ed Application Profile
3. Looking at LOM elements and
vocabularies to determine which (if
any) are candidates for inclusion in AP
- This work is still ongoing – any feedback?
Dublin Core Educational Work
Please join the DC-Ed Community!
E-mail me or Diane
Join the JISCmail list to be notified of new
developments and take part in discussions
Register vocabularies! You can use the NSDL
Registry, or … see the next presentation re
the Becta Vocabulary Bank …