IST Project 10051 - EASEL 1 EASEL@MEG Neil Evans-Mudie [email protected] Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd

IST Project 10051 - EASEL 1

EASEL@MEG

Neil [email protected]

Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd.http://www.fdgroup.co.uk/fde


Educators Access to Service in the Electronic Landscape http://www.fdgroup.co.uk/easel

Funded by: EU 5th Framework - IST Initiative Partners spanning Austria, Ireland,

Italy, Spain, UK include GIUNTI Publishing and The Open University.

Lead Partner: Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd. Project Manager: [email protected]

EASEL@MEG


EASEL@MEG: Story I Re-purposing of existing digital resources to

create new offerings. (Content) Creation Upload Storage Search Retrieval Restructuring / Re-purposing Export (Adaptive content) Content / LMS Interworking


EASEL: Story - end to end use Maintain repository records

Edit CCK course Search / Select / Preview

existing learning resources Add selection to CCK course Structure CCK course Publish course to LMS (or

Repository / other third party e.g. ‘file’)

Publish

More?

Search / Select

[Add]

[New] CCK Course

Restructure

Yes

No

Iterative process


Components: Digital Repository (DR) Semantic Registry (SR) Local & Remote Search Gateways Course Constructor Kit (CCK)

Content: Granular, learning objects (LOBJs) Adaptive (? How to present this as granular.) Interworking (bookmarks, annotations, results)

• data model choice (UfI / SCORM?)

EASEL@MEG: Story II


Open specifications: Metadata Delivery Content / LMS Interworking

EASEL@MEG: Story III


EASEL@MEG: DR (limited) Multi-schema search in parallel.

Parallel schema searching. Extensible – multiple targets or DRs.

Search solution using Z39.50 protocol Bespoke web-based technology for DR functionality :

Upload

Storage

Retrieval


EASEL@MEG: DR - Metadata Schemas

DCMES <dc>

<title alternative="Le Petit Prince">The Little Prince</title>

<language>en</language>

<subject>fiction</subject>

</dc>

IMSMD <record> <general>

<title><langstring lang="en">The Little Prince</langstring></title>

<keywords><langstring lang="en">fiction</langstring></keywords>

</general>

<classification>

<purpose><langstring lang="en">discipline</langstring></purpose>

<description><langstring lang="en">fiction</langstring></description>

</classification>

</record>

Proprietary Legacy (e.g. rdbms) content schemas.


EASEL@MEG: DR - Interoperability issues

Specification claims “The IEEE LOM specification contains elements that

can be mapped to the DCMES.” But binding details make interoperability non-trivial

because:

(a) Design Inter-domain / Intra-domain Inline metadata / Standalone metadata

(b) Structure (c) Vocabularies ((d) Language ?!!)


EASEL@MEG: DC Info. Model I

20 members Plus qualifier members

EASEL has found requirments for both:• Exclusion of existing qualifiers and• Addition of new qualiifers.

Difficult to find an clear statement of an DCMES information model No comprehensive (incl. Qualifiers & DCMES(Ed))

DCMES XML binding.

Unexpected major task for EASEL project


EASEL@MEG: DC Info. Model: Elem.’s & Attr.’s

See d:\data\documents\easel\meg\dc.htm

Name Element Type Constraints Defaultalternative title stringentitytype creator enumeration individual | corporatescheme subject enumeration lcsh | mesh | ddc | lcc | udcabstract description stringableofcontents description string

entitytype publisher enumeration individual | corporateentitytype contributor enumeration individual | corporateype date enumeration created | valid | available | issued | modified

scheme date enumeration iso8601 iso8601scheme type enumeration dct1 | imsmd-lrt1extent format stringscheme format stringmedium format stringscheme identifier enumeration uri | doi | isbnscheme source enumeration uri | doi | isbnscheme language enumeration rfc3066 rfc3066ype relation enumeration conformsTo | hasFormat | hasPart | hasVersion | isBasedOn |

isFormatOf | isPartOf | isReferencedBy | isReplacedBy |isRequiredBy | isVersionOf | references | replaces | requires

scheme relation stringype coverage enumeration spatial | temporal

scheme coverage enumeration point | iso3166 | box | tgn | period | w3cdtfmediator audience stringearningcontext audience stringdentifier standard stringversion standard stringscheme typicallearningtime enumeration iso8601 iso8601

Attributes

Content Model

Produced from TIBCOExtensibility XML Authority


EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member I

Semantic and Vocabulary: Title*

• What is the purpose of dc/title/alternative in a digital landscape?

Creator• Assumption made to map dc/creator as vCard ‘formatted name’. (Has the

role of vCard really been thought out within IMSMD.)• No provision within DCMES for stating whether member is individual or

corporate.

Subject*• Contextualisation problem within IMSMD (relies upon the value of

record/classification/purpose/langstring=“discipline”).• Mapping of dc/subject to both record/general/keywords/… and

record/classification/… depending on the existence of dc/subject/scheme.

Description*


Publisher• Ditto dc/creator comments.

Creator• Ditto dc/creator comments.

Date• Mapped to record/lifecycle/contribute/role=“publisher”.• Information loss because ‘qualifiers’ cannot be mapped.• Format variance (DCMI Period).

Type• Competitive vocabularies reflecting inter- / intra-domain schema design

origins.

Format• dc/format/extent maps to both record/technical/size or /duration. Choice is

dependent upon voluntary use of file size unit of measure (i.e. b, Mb, Gb, etc.)

EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member II


Identifier Source Language Relation Coverage

• Loss of spatial / temporal contextualisation

Rights Audience

• Mapped to record/educational/intendedenduserrole - restrict vocabularly to match IMS member, from {Teacher, Author, Learner, Manager}

• Propose an additional qualifier - learning context (learningcontext) with a restricted vocabularly from {PrimaryEducation, Secondary Education, Higher Education, University First Cycle, University Second Cycle, University Postgrade, Technical School First Cycle, Technical School Second Cycle, Professional Formation, Continuous Formation, Vocational Training, Other} - Is this a consistent, good vocabularly?

EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member III


Standard• Mapped to general/clasification@purpose=“standard”. Again processing

complexities due to the contextualisation nature of the IMS purpose member.

Interactivity Type Interactivity Level Typical Learning Time

• Format variance (DCMI Period).

EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member IV

* language impact?!!


Binding structures: Index entry duplication during DR upload process. De-contextualise IMSMD members during upload to

DRs to facilitate ‘exotic’ (e.g. FDI’s AGORA) metadata record retrieval and presentation.

• Use existing, well-known, published Z39.50 TAG sets e.g. ‘meta.tag’, ‘tagsetg.tag’, ‘tagsetm.tag’.

Vocabularies Sensible adoption and refinement of existing

vocabularies. Strong candidate for impacting specification(s)’s

agencies. Inter-discipline skills (domain, library). DC vocabularies must be voluntarily adopted - XML

control documents only spec. attribute content.

EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member: Soln’s


EASEL@MEG: Limitations. Local search gateway discourse.

Interoperability achieved by mapping schemas to each other.

Therefore, new schemas need to be mapped to ALL existing schemas within DR(s) - considerable effort, possibly duplicating past effort [a few subtle differences :-)]

EASEL also exploring a Remote search gateway. Interoperability achieved through the use of a Semantic

Registry (and a universal semantic class schema). Therefore, new schemas need to be mapped only ONCE

to existing SR classes. Parallels with MEG’s own Registry (contact: Pete

Johnson, UKOLN).


EASEL@MEG: Future Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd. & EASEL

promote the ADOPTION of open specification(s). Adoption with vendor feedback to the specification(s)’s

agencies for the modification of their schemas to support our (customers) requirements.

FDE Ltd. supports national initiatives, such as MEG, to engage with the open specifications process and work towards a model of: national adoption, new national requirements and national feedback.


EASEL@MEG: Future not area, area, area but VOCABULARIES, VOCABULARIES,

VOCABULARIES LOCAL BEST PRACTICE, LOCAL BEST

PRACTICE


EASEL@MEG

Neil [email protected]

Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd.http://www.fdgroup.co.uk/fde

Documents

IST Project 10051 - EASEL 1 EASEL@MEG Neil Evans-Mudie [email protected] Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd