Metadata Schema Registries: update on current activity

Rachel Heery, UKOLN, University of Bath

www.ukoln.ac.uk

September 2005

                                                             

Some current activities…

• DCMI Registry (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative)

• JISC Metadata Schema Registry (UK Joint Information Systems Committee of the Higher Education Funding Agency)

• NSDL Registry (National Science Digital Library;

Cornell University and University of Washington)

• DEST Registry (Department of Education, Science and Training, Australia)

                                                             

DCMI Registry: benefits

• Simplify the discovery of terms and illustrate the relationship between terms.

• Promote the use of Dublin Core• Provide a trusted source of information about

Dublin Core terms and related vocabularies.• Make the registry software available to the

community as open-source

                                                             

DCMI Registry: current status

• Developed by Harry Wagner, OCLC, with input from DCMI Registry WG

• Deployed by DCMI to provide navigational access to Dublin Core terms

• Software available using Subversion from OCLC• Web and Application interfaces supported• Search & browse functions provided• International support for 25 languages• Support for SOAP and REST style Web services• Full support for local extensions• Distributed as open source, built entirely on open source/open

standards• Deployed as a distributed architecture• “Light” version also available

                                                             

DCMI Registry: 2005 accomplishments

• Version 3.3.9– Better packaging of software– Statistics package

• Added metadata and UI translations for Maori• Updated Greek metadata and UI translations• New installation: National Library of New Zealand• Registry Lite

– Simple installation (binary deliverable)– In-memory - no persistence– Client-side XML transformations– REST-only application interface

                                                             

DCMI Registry: distributed sites

• OCLC, Dublin Ohio• University of Tsukuba, Japan

– Mitsuharu Nagamori

• The University of Goettingen, Germany– Thomas Fischer

• The Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

• National Library of New Zealand– Karen Rollitt

                                                             

DCMI Registry Lite

• Designed for easy implementation. • Tested successfully with Redhat Linux servers and

should work for other Linux / Unix operating systems

• Windows servers may require a minor tweak in the way directories are accessed.

• Supports vocabularies other than Dublin Core.• Vocabulary must be encoded in RDF• The application war file and source code are

available here: http://wip.dublincore.org/downloads/ • There is still some work to be completed!

                                                             

JISC Metadata Schema Registry

• Funded by the UK Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) which funds initiatives in higher education

• One of several ‘shared services’ for the JISC’s digital Information Environment

• Registering ‘application profiles’: customised, extended versions of standard schemas

• Partners– ILRT, University of Bristol (Dave Beckett, Nikki Rogers)– UKOLN, University of Bath (Pete Johnston, Rachel

Heery)– Becta, CETIS

                                                             

JISC Metadata Schema Registry: motivation

• Requirement from projects to– Locate appropriate terms– Ensure they use authoritative version– Manage evolution of term sets

• Requirement from funders for– Projects to declare terms in use– Projects to re-use terms where possible– Reduction of duplicated effort

                                                             

JISC Metadata Schema Registry: benefits

• Single point of access for the UK education community to information about terms used in DC and IEEE LOM

• Promotion of existing metadata solutions• Increased interoperability between schemas as a

result of re-use across applications• Encouragement of harmonisation between

‘competing’ standards

                                                             

JISC Metadata Schema Registry: Phase 1

Deliverables 2004 – 2005

Full set of documentation to support development of MSR tools including – usage scenarios– functional requirements – data models

• DC application profile• IEEE LOM application profile

 

                                                             

JISC Metadata Schema Registry: Phase 1

Demonstrators:• Registry Web site allows users to browse and query existing

data from the registry server• Registry data server provides a persistent store for data about

metadata terms and their use• Data creation tool which enables users to create descriptions of

their metadata vocabularies and application profiles which can be submitted to the registry server

• A small set of DC and IEEE LOM data created for indexing by the registry server

• Workshop was held in March to evaluate tools and provide feedback on requirements

• Evaluation report on the basis of the deliverables and a workshop

Note…. Tools not ready to launch!

                                                             

JISC Metadata Schema Registry: useful links

– Project web sitehttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/iemsr/

– Registry Web Site 1http://iemsr.ukoln.ac.uk/ – Registry Web Site 2 http://iemsr.ukoln.ac.uk/iemsr/

– Data creation toolhttp://www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/iemsr/wp3/client/

– Available fromhttp://sourceforge.net/projects/schemas/

                                                             

JISC Metadata Schema Registry: Phase 2

To October 2006• Ensure the IEMSR meets user requirements • Provide a more focused business case • Enhance the Registry tools (i.e. the registry server and

schema creation tools) to a standard whereby users can evaluate the demonstrator service.

• Enhance the Registry Web interface to a standard whereby users can evaluate the demonstrator service.

• Improve machine to machine interfaces to the Registry

                                                             

NSDL Metadata Registry

• NSF funded, start up around now• Registry bloghttp://eg2.ischool.washington.edu/registry/registryblog/

• Complements the NSDL Metadata Repository • To enable NSDL projects to identify, declare and publish

metadata schemas and schemes (controlled vocabularies)

• Initial priority on controlled vocabularies• Exploring use of DCMI registry software

http://eg2.ischool.washington.edu/registry/documents/proposalDocs/

                                                             

Australian DEST funded Registry

• DART 2005-2007 (Dataset Acquisition, Accessibility and Annotation e-Research Technology Project)

• Australian Research Information Infrastructure grant

• Centralized repository/registry of metadata schemas

• Light registry, links to XML schemas?

                                                             

Collaboration?

• Sharing information on user requirements• Building broader business case• Reaching consensus on application profile data

model• Shared test data• Peer review • Joint dissemination