For info, the report from the DC-Education working group last September:
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Notes from DC-Ed meeting at DC-2008
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 09:11:20 -0500
From: Diane I. Hillmann <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Diane I. Hillmann <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Folks:
Apologies for taking so long with this--please feel free to ask
questions or comment on the notes. Note that these are also available
via Google Docs at: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhbqfq9m_52gkjqzbfj
******************
DC-Education Community
Application Profile Update Meeting at DC-2008
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Hegelplatz Room 1.102
Co-Moderators, Sarah Currier and Diane Hillmann
Sarah thanked Lorna Campbell, Phil Barker and John Robertson of JISC
CETIS and Pete Johnston of DC-Arch and DCMI/IEEE TF for their help this
year. She reminded all attendees of the DC/LOM compatibility meeting
later in the conference.
She reiterated the decision made several years ago concerning the
direction of the AP development: a modular profile covering only
educational aspects of resources. The implication of this is that the AP
will not give guidelines for usage of non-educational properties, or
non-educational usages of properties. The idea is to enable a “plug-in”
AP for use with other domain APs. However, she noted that this is still
exploratory work; modular profiles have not yet been implemented so we
are breaking new ground. Sarah discussed the mandatory parts of the
Singapore Framework: functional requirements, domain model and the
Description Set Profile. She also mentioned the work on vocabularies
already accomplished, with questions about where that work should
“live”, and how/whether it might be sustainable.
Sarah reminded the audience that the AP group had put out a call for use
cases late last year, and received a good response. Sarah presented a
table listing requirements represented by these use cases. These
included re-purposing existing resources, enabling better discovery
using machine techniques, compatibility with other standards, and
“authority” (who asserts the information), plus distinguishing between
“intended for” and “used in.” Other requirements included correlation
with educational achievement standards, use of controlled vocabularies
vs. free text/tagging, or classified browsing. There was also a
requirement for extensibility for subject-specific educational purposes,
such as teaching language.
One area where Sarah’s analysis indicated that issues abound has to do
with educational outcomes, which are expressed in various ways in
different educational environments. There was also major interest in
user annotations, comments, reviews and ratings, with some interest
about how those fit in a linked data environment.
Sarah introduced a proposed domain model for educational resources.
There were various comments, particularly about the bottom of the chart,
where relationships to audiences, educational outcomes, and agents were
indicated. There was some discussion about whether or not the AP needed
a Description Set Profile given its fragmentary nature. Sarah quoted an
email from Pete suggesting that people might cut/paste some of our
statement templates into their already existing APs, and this might be a
strategy to move ahead without having to develop a full DSP. Phil Barker
had a concern about the lack of identifiers in the AP, but given the
suggestion that these be an aggregation of statement templates, he felt
the issue might be moot.
Sarah noted that there is still a large amount of work to be done, with
many people urging us on but unable to help much. Her list of remaining
work items was formidable but the group felt that some low hanging fruit
was available. Sarah and Diane will make some proposals for continuing
with the effort based on the good feedback from the meeting.
Slides for Sarah's presentation can be found on Slideshare:
http://www.slideshare.net/morageyrie/dublin-core-metadata-initiative-education-application-profile-task-group-meeting-berlin-2008
Meeting report by D. Hillmann
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