Hi Andy,
Thanks very much for your discussion paper. Having all the issues
relating to identifiers outlined so clearly is a _big_ step forward. I'm
cc'ing this mail to the EC SIG mailing list too as many of the issues
will be of direct relevance to members of that group too.
In terms of comments, there's only one issues I would quibble with....
> 6. Simple to assign: The process of assigning identifiers to learning
> objects should be as simple as possible. Assignment should be
> independent of the workflow associated with creating and managing a
> learning object. In particular, assignment should be independent of
> the process of depositing the learning object in a repository. For
> example, if a person creates a learning object on their PC, and
> packages it using a desktop tool, creating metadata about it in the
> process, then they should be able to assign an identifier to both the
> learning object and the metadata record and have those two identifiers
> honoured (i.e. used) by a repository (or several repositories) when
> the learning object is deposited. The creator doesn't want the
> repository to assign a different identifier to the object and metadata
> when they deposit them: nor do they want to have to wait until the
> point of deposit before they can assign an identifier.
I'm not so sure about this. While I agree that in theory that
assignment should be independent of workflow I don't know whether this
is really practical. Although the primary aim of the UKCMF is to
facilitate interoperability, a no less important goal is to simplify the
creation of metadata as much as possible. Part of this simplification
will probably (hopefully?) involve repositories generating as many of
the UKCMF fields as possible. In the back of my mind I had envisaged
that identifiers would also be generated automatically but I have to
confess I hadn't thought through the practicalities and implications of
this approach. Still I can't help wondering how many authors are likely
to add identifiers to resources and metadata at the point of creation
rather than assuming that the database or repository will do it for them
at the point of upload?
Any thoughts on this issue folks? How are the developers on these lists
currently dealing with the issue of identifiers?? Any comments guys?
Phil - What approach will Reload be taking for example?
Thanks again Andy.
Bye
Lorna
Andy Powell wrote:
>I've put together a short discussion paper concerning identifiers for
>learning objects:
>
> http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/distributed-systems/lo-identifiers/
>
>The intention is to try and build a list of our (the UK HE and FE
>community's) requirements for identifiers, which we can then use to assess
>the suitability of the available identifier technologies.
>
>The paper suggests an initial list of 10 requirements.
>
>Comments welcome...
>
>Andy
>--
>Distributed Systems, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
>http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/a.powell +44 1225 383933
>Resource Discovery Network http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
>
>.
>
>
>
--
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/
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