Apologies for cross postings Dear All The question of secondary metadata (tutor notes, suggestions, design ideas, reviews etc) has been a vexed one and has thrown up some interesting debate, including the question of whether anyone wants it or not. That debate, for me, leads to some very interesting places but I don't what to explore them just yet....Instead I want ask a simple question and get your opinions. Secondary Metadata: The project I am working on and the teachers I am working with want to use secondary metadata in the context of learning objects as an extension of their current practice (in fact they already use it in their normal 'real world' non-digital work). But we have some problems. The annotations field is not much good for it and a restricted or shared vocabulary looks unlikely (or even desirable given the multiplicity of pedagogic models out there - from the ever-present transmission model to some of the more 'far-out' models, if you are interested in the models this link is very handy http://tip.psychology.org/). So, instead of trying to bend the LOM (Learning Object Metadata) into to doing something it was not really designed to do what about this simple, and crude, suggestion? For those that want secondary metadata then they create it in a rich text file and place it in an agreed place within the object. If that is a workable way forward then it would be good if the file had a common name like say 'notes'. This way all we would be specifying would be where the secondary metadata is located in an object and where people should look if they wanted to find it. Of course many objects would not have any secondary metadata - i.e. it would not be mandatory. But if there was any then it would be useful if there was a convention to place it somewhere and give it a common name. What goes inside the secondary metadata file would be totally up to the authors / creators etc and if you were interested in what they had to say you would have to engage with that on their terms, at least initially, - rather like we do in the real world. So, this secondary metadata file would be just a 'common space' where secondary metadata could be placed and read - by people, not machines. If this was so then we could say in the annotations field of the LOM "see the 'notes' file for more information' - some such. If we agreed on a set name for the secondary metadata file the presence of that secondary metadata information (yes /no) could even be denoted in some way in the LOM - and be machine readable. They way I see it metadata and learning objects exist on a spectrum which at the 'sophisticated' end have detailed 'well formed' metadata and may have SCORM and Learning Design attributes and characteristics - and very exciting and full of potential all that is. [But the development of these technologies and things like the integration of runtime systems, learning objects, student records and enterprise systems and so on is also throwing up (as they do) lots of unforeseen questions about the our professional cultures and institutions. See this article for interesting ESRC research on this relatively neglected 'systems' aspect of our kind of work: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue24/virtual-universities/] I digress.... As we go back down through the spectrum of learning objects we move towards the 'primitive' end where people are using repositories as very simple digital libraries - and getting very immediate benefits, that's where I am coming from. What do you think? Thanks John > John Casey > Project Officer > Learning to Learn - an X4L Project > DAICE > Airthrey Castle > University of Stirling > Stirling > FK9 4LA > Tel: +44 (0)1786 467943 > email: [log in to unmask] web: http://www.stir.ac.uk/departments/daice/l2l/ -- The University of Stirling is a university established in Scotland by charter at Stirling, FK9 4LA. Privileged/Confidential Information may be contained in this message. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message (or responsible for delivery of the message to such person), you may not disclose, copy or deliver this message to anyone and any action taken or omitted to be taken in reliance on it, is prohibited and may be unlawful. In such case, you should destroy this message and kindly notify the sender by reply email. Please advise immediately if you or your employer do not consent to Internet email for messages of this kind.