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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