Hi everyone,

I have followed the discussion on the DCAP Guidelines with some interest
but also with a sense of detachment because the direction Dublin Core has
taken left me behind long ago. (For those who do not know me, I manage the
metadata standards and workflow for HealthInsite, a gateway to health
information for Australians.)

I welcomed the original Dublin Core because of the simple framework and the
straightforward DC dot notation for embedded metadata in HTML pages. As
well as being machine-readable (our system has no trouble harvesting DC
dot), it was also concise and human-readable. This made it easy for me to
explain the coding to people in our partner organisations - the people who
create and update metadata records for us range from highly experienced
cataloguers down to administration officers - simplicity is vital. The
simple framework was also important to me because it meant I could
concentrate my efforts on our two most important attributes: subject and
date.modified.

Dublin Core has become far more complex with the move towards more
semantically-correct coding and RDF. I can see that this might be useful
for some communities within Dublin Core but for me it is horrible. I do not
understand much of the documentation (eg the DCMI Abstract Model) and I do
not have time to undertake the study required to interpret it. The changes
in terminology (eg element, description) are particularly confusing. The
DCAP document is more readable but I do not think I will need to create a
HealthInsite application profile because we follow AGLS.

My focus is on metadata content - making sure that it is accurate and that
it is updated to match updates in the resources that we link to. This is
where I worry a lot about Dublin Core. There seems to be an assumption
that, when the technical coding framework is in place, then everyone will
create/maintain accurate, consistent metadata content and (hey presto!) the
Semantic Web will connect everybody to everything and will always be
up-to-date. Accuracy and consistency requires intensive ongoing quality
control which is expensive. Without quality control, poor quality metadata
can hinder searching - this was the experience with the whole-of-government
search engine for the Australian government sector.

As you can see, I am a Semantic Web sceptic. For the time being,
HealthInsite will continue as a legacy DC implementation. To upgrade would
be expensive both for us and our partner organisations, with no clear
benefit to support a business case for funding.

I would be interested to know if there are other sites using legacy
implementations of DC.

Regards, Prue

Prue Deacon
Metadata Manager, HealthInsite Editorial Team
Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing
[log in to unmask]
phone: 61 2 6289 7505
http://www.healthinsite.gov.au


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