Hello and Happy New year everyone! First week back and we're on to
identifiers already :-}
This is just a quick mail to say that I absolutely agree with Phil's
comments below. Given the confusion that currently exists regarding
identifiers anything we can do to encourage implementors to converge on
a solution like URI is to be recommended.
Nancy - I'm not sure when you joined this list so I don't know if you
received a copy of the Identifiers for Learning Objects meeting report.
If not you can download a copy at:
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/content2/20031216172927 It doesn't solve any
problems but it may be of interest.
Andy - didn't you mentioned that you had done some work on a document
that illustrates how to encode different identifier schemes as URIs? If
so, would you be willing to share this with the group?
All the best
Lorna
Phil Barker wrote:
> Nancy J. Hoebelheinrich wrote:
> [ in reply to Andy Powell's comments on URNs/URIs]
>
>>
>> ### Regarding your comment #1: The purpose for putting in the element
>> name "URN" for the resources on a resource list was to provide
>> specifically
>> for the inclusion of the ISBN or ISSN into a fairly traditional citation
>> format.
>
> <snip>
>
>> Now, if as you suggest, we could use the LOM
>> 1.1.1:General.Identifier.Entry
>> and the 1.1.2:General.Identifer.Catalog set to "URI", we would probably
>> need to specifiy in the Best Practices section of our Base Spec that the
>> ISBN and/or ISSN should be included explicitly when available for
>> purposes
>> of stripping it out and including it into a citation format if / when
>> it is
>> necessary or desirable to display the information in that way. It
>> becomes,
>> in effect, an implementation issue. That might well work. I'd
>> appreciate
>> any feedback from implementors on this list or from the RLI WG list.
>
>
> Hello Nancy, hello Andy
>
> My understanding (and I'm waiting for Andy to correct me where necesarry)
> is that this can be done with URIs, the URI would look like
> ISBN:0782140335
> [though I don't think ISBN is a registered URI scheme]
>
> The URI itself gives the identification scheme as being ISBN, so it is
> not
> necessary to provide that information in the identifier.catalogue element
> (I guess if everyone used/understood URIs this element would become
> redundant). Thus
>
> <identifier>
> <catalogue>ISBN</catalogue>
> <entry>0782140335</entry>
> </identifier>
>
> and
> <identifier>
> <catalogue>URI</catalogue>
> <entry>ISBN:0782140335</entry>
> </identifier>
>
> Are equivalent, and I'm not sure that there is any reason why both
> shouldn't be given in a LOM record (and you could throw in
> URN:ISBN:0782140335 for good measure as another URI). Andy, if I'm right
> that ISBN: isn't a registered URI scheme, which would you prefer: using a
> registered URN or an unregistered URI? [And why isn't ISBN: registered?]
>
>
> HOWEVER,
> Given that persitent identifiers are out of scope for this spec [for good
> reasons], I'm not sure that we can do more than make some statement in
> the
> best practice guide along the lines of "the standard number or similar
> identifier should be recorded in the LOM identifier element
> possibly/preferably [your choice] encoded in as a URI." We could also
> make
> a note about it being possible to repeat the identifier.
>
> Phil.
>
> --
> Phil Barker Learning Technology Adviser
> 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/
>
--
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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