On Thu, 6 May 2004, Charles Duncan wrote:
> Sorry I missed this debate as I was away for a few days but I would have
> voted for mandatory. Optional metadata will just NOT get completed. The
> fact that it is not easy to define a mime type for dynamically produced
> pages is not a reason to throw away its value for all the other uses it
> can have. How is anyone going to be able to search for pdfs or
> powerpoint or videos without technical.format? A sad day for metadata.....
Like Charles, I missed the voting window (boy, you guys don't leave the
window open for long - you need to get more fresh air! :-) ) but I think I
would have voted for 'optional (recommended)', so I'm happy enough with
the result.
To answer Charles' question above... you will be able to offer searches
for "pdfs or powerpoint or videos" but you'll only get hits where the
metadata creator (or software tool) decided to supply that information in
the metadata (or where your search engine is able to automatically
populate that information itself on reciept of the metadata).
In those cases where it is simply not feasible to list all the MIME types
or where there isn't a MIME type to supply, the field isn't going to be
populated by magic - and therefore the record is simply going to have to
be treated as broken or invalid.
I may be losing the plot here... but I'm slightly worried that we haven't
really thought thru the consequences of what an application profile means
by stating that a particular field is 'mandatory'. My only interpretation
of that word is that if a receiving application (a metadata harvester for
example) finds a record without a particular field, then it *must* treat
it as an invalid record and discard it. Any other action effectively
means that the field is 'highly desirable' rather than 'mandatory'...
doesn't it?
To discard a record simply because it doesn't have the technical.format
field populated, strikes me as very extreme. Particularly since the
harvester is likely to be able to pull back the resource itself in many
cases and automatically determine the MIME type(s) - in those situations
where a MIME type is appropriate.
Andy.
> Lorna Campbell wrote:
> > Hi there,
> >
> > It's now the end of the day by my reckoning and the final score in the
> > great Technical.Format debate is:
> >
> > Optional - 8
> > Mandatory - 1
> >
> > So Optional (recommended) it is folks!
> >
> > Thank you and goodnight.
> >
> > Bye
> > 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/
>
>
> --
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>
Andy
--
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