Included below my signature block is the text of the minutes
of the meeting of DC-Education submitted by Jon and I. The
minutes outline the work ahead for the WG. Over the next few
days, we'll be starting up conversations regarding: (1) details
of our face-to-face meeting, and (2) the work plan for moving
forward with determining education/training related qualifiers
for the DC15 and possible additional elements and qualifiers.
An html version of the minutes are available at:
http://www.ischool.washington.edu/sasutton/DC7_DCEd.html
Stuart
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Stuart A. Sutton (206) 685-6618 (V)
University of Washington (206) 543-1794 (F)
School of Library and Information Science
Box 352930
Seattle, WA 98195-2930 [log in to unmask]
GEM http://geminfo.org (Project)
http://www.TheGateway.org
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Report of the DC-Education Working Group's DC7 Sessions:
Tuesday, Oct. 26 & Wednesday, Oct. 27
REPORT BY: Jon Mason & Stuart Sutton (co-chairs)
ATTENDEES (one or both sessions):
Thor Anderson (IMS), Rei Atarashi (Nara Institute of Science &
Technology), Allan Barclay, Alexander Bolte (Ferue Inst for
Educational Research), Alan Burk (University of New Brunswick,
SchoolNet, Canada), Erik Duval (K.U./ Ariadne / IEEE LTSC /
ISSS LTWG), Maria Elisabeth (SuB Gottingen), Ed Fox (Virginia
Tech), Jane Greenberg, Michel Klein (Vrye Univesiteit, CS,
Amsterdam, Netherlands), Michael Kluck (Humboldt University,
European SchoolNet), Jon Mason (EdNA), Nancy Morgan (GEM),
Liddy Nevile (Dept Educ., Vicoria, Australia, Melbourne IT),
Ronan O'Beirne (Learning Direct Database Services), Simon
Pockley, Diann Rusch-Feja (DBS), Wolfrcam Sperber, Achim
Skinacker (KOM, TU Darmstadt), Phillip Steven (Australian
Business Information Service), Stuart Sutton (GEM), Stuart
Weibel OCLC), Mary Woodley
TUESDAY, OCT. 26:
There were five items on DC-Education's Frankfurt agenda:
1. Relationships with other education and training metadata
projects--IEEE Learning Technology Standards
Committee (LTSC) Learning Object Metadata (LOM)
(e.g., the ARIADNE, GESTALT, & EDUCAUSE's
Instructional Management Systems (IMS))
2. Review of work done to date
3. Next face-to-face meeting
4. Dublin Core element qualifiers
5. Extension elements and qualifiers
Agenda Item #1: Relationships with other education and
training metadata projects
Since the first agenda item presented a significant "threshold
question," the full meeting on Tuesday was spent discussing and
arriving at a general consensus that in order to avoid unnecessary
multiple metadata standards for network-based education and
training materials, cooperation and coordination should be sought
with IEEE and the projects under its umbrella. Prior to the
Workshop, negotiations had been ongoing between DCMI and
IMS on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and an Action
Plan that defines matters regarding cooperation and the DC and
IMS "name spaces". At its meeting on Sunday, October 24, the
Advisory Committee postponed action on the MOU pending
clarification of the potentially divisive nature of the agreement-
i.e., dividing US (IMS) and European (ARIADNE, GESTALT,
etc.) projects under the IEEE umbrella. Agreement was reached
to explore multi-way collaboration. [NOTE: During its closing
meeting (same time as DC-Education's second session), the
Advisory Committee decided to table the IMS MOU and Action
Plan while more expansive negotiations are pursued].
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 27:
Agenda Item #2: Review of work done to date
Early participants on the DC-Education listserv asked for a
summary of the elements (and their accompanying semantics) for
existing metadata projects for education and training resources.
The following non-definitive listing of projects were either
mentioned on the list or otherwise identified:
--Deutscher Bildungs-Server/German Educational Resources
(DBS)
--Education Network Australia (EdNA)*
--European Schoolnet (EUN)*
--Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM)*
--Victorian Department of Education Channel Metadata (VEC)*
--Virtual European School (VES)*
--IEEE Learning Object Metadata (IEEE LOM, Draft v3.6)*
--ARIADNE
--GESTALT
--IMS
An analysis was done of those projects marked with asterisks (*) in
the listing above and a table containing elements, element
qualifiers, and descriptions prepared in a common format before
the meeting in Frankfurt (see
http://www.iSchool.washington.edu/sasutton/DC-Education.html).
In addition, a listing of elements held in common was developed.
An admittedly crude metric for "commonality" was used: In order
for an attribute to be considered "common," it had to show up in
two or more project element lists. A cursory examination of the
entries in this listing of commonly held attributes revealed five
general categories of resource attributes currently not expressible
directly through unqualified DC (numbers in parenthesis indicate
the number of projects including elements/qualifiers in the
category):
1.Users (6):
--Grade, age, academic/vocational/training "level"
--Administrators of the resource
--Student "audience" ("target group," "learning context,"
"beneficiary")
2.Duration (3):
--Focus on "use" time (as opposed to technical duration)
3.Learning Processes/Characteristics:
--Student groupings, teaching methods, mechanisms of
assessment, learning prerequisites, interactivity type
and level, material type from a didactic viewpoint, type
of use in a scholastic milieu, "difficulty", "semantic density",
etc.
4.Standards (4):
--National and/or international curricula
--National and/or international content/process standards
--Domain specific standards and benchmarks (e.g., U.S.
Departments of Labor & Defense training benchmarks,
etc.)
5.Quality (3):
--Unstructured assessments (e.g., third-party
reviews/annotations)
--Structured assessments (assessment based on
established evaluative criteria)
In creating this listing of categories, the goal was to take a broad
look at current DC-based project activity precisely focused on the
domain of education and training. As a result, there were a number
of factors that were not taken into consideration:
1. Many of the projects use general DC element qualifiers
(e.g., refinements of Identifier, Subject, etc.) that either
duplicate many of the functions of qualifiers currently
under consideration by the element WGs (as presented at
DC7) or, are project specific (i.e., local) and have no
direct relation to the general domain of education and
training. For example, a number of the projects include
substantial refinements to the Format element and/or
otherwise include substantial technical metadata necessary
to interoperability in their specific contexts. No such
elements/qualifiers were considered.
2. The DC distinction between "discovery" and "description"
was not considered in the preliminary category analysis.
3. The "fit" within the DC elements (with proposed new
qualifiers) vs. new domain specific elements for education
and training metadata discovered was not considered in the
preliminary category analysis.
Agenda Item #3: Next face-to-face meeting
Plans for the face-to-face working meeting will be worked out over
the course of the next few weeks over the DC-Education listserv.
When the DC-Education Working Group was set up, tentative
plans were for the Working Group to meet in Melbourne, Australia
in December or January. Discussion and a decision regarding the
meeting date and place must be one of the top priorities on the
listserv discussions over the course of the next few weeks.
Agenda Item #4 & #5: Dublin Core elements and qualifiers &
Extension elements and qualifiers
It was thought that the general categories ferreted out of the six
projects examined might provide an adequate, preliminary
framework for both the DC-Education list discussions and the
division of work over the next several months as we move toward
our face-to-face meeting and our recommendations. It was decided
that we would go back to the DC-Education list with this report
and with the categories (with more clearly articulated category
definitions) to find out who is interested in working on defining
possible DC core element qualifiers and possible new education
and training specific elements and qualifiers for each category.
It was observed that some of the categories are more "involved"
and will take more time and effort than others (e.g., compare
Duration and Learning Processes/Characteristics). It was thought
that Learning Processes/Characteristics categories might be
subdivided into more manageable parts. Such a subdivision will
be part of the next-steps in the WG's online deliberations.
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