Hi Lorna, everyone,
belatedly, here are the comments which I have been scribbling on my
printout of the UKCMF.
[General comment: in a couple of places I've suggested that you should
recommend information is recorded where it is know even though the field
cannot be made mandatory--there may be other fields which would benefit
from this approach, I've only noted the ones which occured to me as I read
the document, I've not thought systematically about which other might be
useful. However, I think Andy Powell's response of 21 Feb probably
identifies the ones you should consider.]
1.1.1 Catalog (re Andy's comments)
Any chance of someone like JISC setting up a Handle registry? Does it come
within the scope of the JISC call 5/03
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/index.cfm?name=funding_5_03)
1.4 Description
Further guidance will be needed to prevent confusion between general
description and educational description
2.1 Version
Is there scope for recommending that where this is know it should be
recorded? I agree with you reasons for not making mandatory, but it is
pretty important to record when there are different versions.
2.3.1 Role
I would like to make either one of Author and Publisher mandatory,
whichever is more appropriate for a given resource, with the recommendation
that both are recorded if they are known.
2.3.3 date
If all you want to record is year and month then the date time format used
by the LOM allows values like 2003-03 (or just 2003), so the insitence on
YYY-MM-DD and comment about using the first day of the month seems
unnecessary. Again, this has to be optional, but it would be worth
recommending it is recorded if known.
3.3 metdatascheme
Implementation note: it's not a case of either/or you can record *both* the
formal schema (LOMv1.0) and the application profile (eg UKCMF). This came
up in CanCore discussions, and where I think the recommendation will be to
record as many as applicable (eg LOMv1.0, UKCMF, MyApPro where MyApPro is
whatever schema based on the UKCMF is being used) since this allows
applications to pick up on the most specific profile they know of, (eg they
might not know MyApPro, but might know where the UKCMF differs from LOMv1.0)
Advice: P1484.12 is the draft, the P has been dropped now its a standard.
Also, the LOM itself gives "LOMv1.0" as an example, which is what is being
used in testing the XML Schema for the LOM: why use something different to
this?
5. Educational
Multiplicity is not "0 or 1"
5.6 context
A couple more typos in value space and implementation notes you have UCMF,
where I guess youmean UKCMF
5.11 Language
Smallest permitted maximum should be 100
Hope these help, Phil.
Lorna M. Campbell wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I've finally had a chance to read through all your comments on the
> UKCMF. I collated all your mail into a single document which now runs
> to 28 pages and I haven't even started on the accessibility metadata
> discussions yet! A lot of the issues raised when the UKCMF was
> initially published have already been addressed by Phil, Gerry and other
> list members so I'd just like to pick up on a couple of points.
>
> -- Discipline Classification --
> First of all the discussion regarding discipline classification was
> fascinating. Thanks very much to Aida for providing such in depth
> information about classification in general and Dewey in particular.
> Very helpful. As Gerry and Phil pointed out the rational behind
> recommending the use of Dewey for the X4L Programme was to ensure that
> all the resources produced have at least one classification from a
> common scheme. All projects are free to use additional classification
> schemes of course. If the projects really, really object to the use of
> Dewey, or we can't get the licensing issue sorted out, then we will have
> to consider recommending an alternative mandatory classification scheme.
> That would probably mean a combination of the Learn Direct
> classification and JACS, although this may well be even more difficult
> to deal with than Dewey
>
> -- Identifiers --
> Andy Powell raised some very valid issues about the use of identifiers.
> I have to confess that I am slightly out of my depth here. Identifiers
> aren't really my specialised subject. However it's clear we need to
> discuss this issue further and would be happy to follow the
> recommendations of those who are more knowledgeable.
>
> -- Educational Context and Level --
> As Gerry pointed out, element 5.6 educational.context describes "the
> principal environment within which the learning and use of this learning
> object is intended to take place" In order to provide more detailed
> information about the educational level a classification should be used
> to describe 9.1 classification.purpose.educatioanl level. In the UKCMF
> we recommend the use of the SCQF which acts as a common spine against
> which other qualification frameworks can be mapped. See Appendix 2 for
> this mapping.
>
> -- Author and Title --
> I thought Aida's suggestion that author and title fields are of little
> practical use was very interesting although to some extent this is a
> theoretical argument, obviously we need to include these fields in a
> common application profile. Having said that, I have frequently come
> across users who have repeatedly said that the only metadata they are
> interested in, in terms of resource discovery, is title, author and who
> used the resource in what context. This raises all sorts of other
> thorny issues about "secondary usage metadata" and the necessity of the
> other 66 LOM elements which I won't go into here, we'll save that one
> for later!!
>
> -- Mandatory --
> There has been some discussion over what exactly "mandatory" means. This
> issue was raised at a Jorum+ project meeting on Monday. We all agreed
> that mandatory means mandatory. In the context of X4L, the strand B
> tools projects will be encouraged to implement the whole of the LOM but
> will also present users with the option of filling in only the UKCMF
> elements, many of which will be generated automatically by the Jorum
> Development bay. If projects are storing their learning objects in
> their own databases we would still recommend that the implement all the
> mandatory fields plus any additional LOM fields that they may feel are
> relevant to their own project's requirements.
>
> -- Rights Fields --
> Ed Barker asked whether or not the rights fields should be mandatory as
> people may have difficulty finding out whether the resources they are
> using are subject to copyright restrictions. I would suggest that if
> developers are not clear about the copyright of the resources they are
> using, they should definitely not be sharing them for use by the wider
> community. This is a fundamental digital rights management issue so the
> rights fields must remain mandatory. Having said all that, the
> vocabularies for the rights fields are fairly minimal (yes, no,
> description) so there is some scope for fuzziness.
>
> -- Ed Barker's Comments --
> Ed has clearly given the UKCMF a great deal of thought and his RDN case
> study example is very useful, so thanks Ed. However some of his comments
> stem from a slight confusion as to exactly who will be using and
> implementing the UKCMF in the context of the X4L programme. First of
> all we need to distinguish between implementors and users.
> "Implementors" are those who will actually be creating an application
> using the Framework e.g. Jorum+, Reload, database developers, portal
> managers (?). I would expect most "users" to use one or more of these
> applications to create metadata records to describe resources they have
> created or repurposed. It will be the responsibility of the implementors
> to automate much of the process and make the creation of the metadata as
> simple as possible. For example mime types could either be generated
> automatically or selected from a drop down list. Ed also mentions that
> the smallest permitted maximum issue might confuse users. Smallest
> permitted maximum guidelines are for implementors only, users need never
> know they apply, unless they have an odd fetish for creating millions of
> m/d records! Ed also suggested pruning some of the LOM vocabularies of
> some of their less useful terms e.g."terminator". I am seriously
> reluctant to start mucking around with the LOM vocabularies even though
> some of them are rather suspect (I totally agree with Aida's comment
> that the learningresourcetype vocabulary is a horrible mess). In the
> interests of interoperability we have tried to minimise changes to
> controlled vocabularies. The only one we have changed is
> learningcontext (see earlier discussions). If users are unfamiliar
> with some of the more obscure LOM terms they always have the option of
> ignoring them or, if they're really keen, they can consult user guides
> or the Metadata SIG.
>
> Thank you all again for all the issues you've raised. We really
> appreciate your comments as it's only through your input that we can
> ensure that the UKCMF really does meet the requirements of all users and
> implementors.
>
> All the best
> Lorna
>
> --
> Lorna M. Campbell
> Assistant Director
> Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability Standards (CETIS)
> Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde
> +44 (0)141 548 3072
> http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
>
>
--
Phil Barker Learning Technology Advisor
ICBL, School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences
Mountbatten Building, Heriot-Watt University,
Edinburgh, EH14 4AS
Tel: 0131 451 3278 Fax: 0131 451 3327
Web: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/
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