Thank you for your comments Ingo- I've been watching from the sidelines
what's been happening with the new IMS Common Cartridge specification
(actually a bunch of other specs profiled for a common purpose) and have
seen how hard you have been working on profiling there! I appreciate the
support you give to the approach of using profiles of existing
specifications to achieve practical results for users. I don't disagree
with the meat of your comments, but wanted to add my perspective to a
couple of issues, as someone who has been around the IMS / IEEE LOM
metadata scene for 7 years, and has been an on-the-ground LOM
implementer and user for much of that time:
> I think a number of my colleagues within IMS is sharing Andy’s concerns that
> complex metadata systems have failed to gain the importance we all expected.
>
My observation has been that the LOM *is* used (widely, but quietly) in
the educational technology community: in fact a good number of us have
been using it for several years. It is not primarily a "find things on
the web" metadata spec (as Andy noted about DC in his last email), but a
spec for use within educational systems like repositories and LMSs, and
then, hopefully, across federated/shared systems and services. However,
when it comes to interoperating with other systems, most folk end up
distilling it down to DC-like elements. My feeling is that this is *not*
because folk don't want to share educational elements, it's more because
(1) the LOM is not quite hitting the mark for most implementers in
supporting description of educational properties in a shareable way, and
(2) the standard ways of sharing/exposing/searching metadata focus on DC
- e.g. OAI-PMH (which as recent research has shown, is tricky enough to
implement in the real world without adding additional complications).
However, we here at Intrallect have done some work on, for instance,
exposing LOM metadata for SRU/SRW and OAI-PMH- because customers request
it. I guess my point is that the "failed to gain importance" has complex
causes, and in fact is a questionable statement in itself: importance to
who? Importance by what standard? And what has been happening out here
in the community since the LOM was finalised? There hasn't been any
*recent* research.
> This is a major reason why there is actually no observable activity on
> metadata specifications within IMS. Even IMS’ own metadata specification is
> no longer pursued – instead IMS is using the IEEE LOM metadata
> specification, profiling it where necessary. The reason for this is the
> insight that the community is served best if there are as few overlapping
> specifications in use as possible.
>
I don't think IMS gave up on metadata (if I have misread your comment I
apologise)- they just handed it on to another body with international
standardisation responsibilities (made up, if I understand correctly, of
many of the same people who worked on IMS LRM!).
Now, some might say the LOM was standardised too soon, before problems
were able to be fully observed and rectified. In the meantime, users of
the LOM have looked at Dublin Core in envy for its simplicity. At the
DC-Education working group meeting last year in Mexico, there were LOM
implementers and users who expressed the notion that, if, by working
with Dublin Core, the educational metadata community could come up with
a solution that improved on the LOM without losing what is good about
it, they would happily take this solution up. This is what inspired me,
as primarily a LOM implementer, to get involved in the DC-Education
Community. If we can use this application profile as a means of taking
what is best about both specifications, we can make it easier for those
who implement and use educational metadata.
Meanwhile, the enviable simplicity of Dublin Core is perhaps being lost
with some of the higher-level conceptual discussions. I do understand
why it is necessary to create some high-level conceptual basis for
Dublin Core and application profiles of it, but I'd really like to get
my hands dirty with building on the lessons of the past years and
creating something that is easy for people to understand and implement.
This is why I want a two-pronged approach and am still hoping that
someone will step up and help us with the modelling side of things while
I continue to talk with ground-level implementers about what they really
need, property by property, vocabulary by vocabulary.
Sorry, that was too long a rant for too small a purpose!
As you were.
Best
Sarah
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Sarah Currier
Co-Moderator, Dublin Core Education Community
Product Manager, Intrallect Ltd.
http://www.intrallect.com
2nd Floor, Regent House
Blackness Road
Linlithgow
EH49 7HU
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 870 234 3933 Mob: +44 (0)7980855801
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
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