Stu, thanks for once again reminding us all of the options in parts
a, b & c of your message. However, I have to take issue with
your final assessment of "pedagogy". You say:
"1. there are no agreements in place about standard vocabularies."
Well, that is not the case. There are a number of vocaularies/thesauri
that class works on the basis of pedagogical aspects--take a look
at the ERIC Thesaurus (to name one). No, there is not ONE standard
vocabulary in place. But, what the heck, the DC.Subject element
accommodates multiple vocabularies (thought that was the point
of the original "schemes" concept). This area is no different. Multiple
schemes/vocabularies/thesauri inevitably work against "simple"
semantic interoperability at the level of value qualifiers. However, if it
is a problem in the education arena with pedagogy, then it is equally
a problem with DC.Subject. No pushers in that arena to make
SUBJECT "local."
" 2. the categorization is heavily value-laden (that is, your judgement
about what terms would apply to a given resource will depend on your
philosophical attachments)"
Well, that is not always the case, and, if "value-laden" judgments
are a problem, I _again_ have to return to DC.Subject where pretty
hefty "value-laden" judgments exist, have always existed, and will
continue to exist (e.g., something is about "totalitarianism in
governance" ... heck, my totalitarianism may be your democracy).
No call to make DC.Subject "local."
Even so, there are many times when it is not a judgment call at all. For
example, assume a resource in which a creator explicitly states that
the resource has an assessment process whereby students evaluate their
own work. Is it not purely descriptive cataloging for the metadata
generator
to record "student self-assessment"--a pedagogical aspect? And, if the
term exists in someone's controlled vocabulary--so much the better!
"3. there is perhaps little agreement across cultures about what the
values would be"
Stu, my response is that with the exception of an unqualfied "DC.Format",
this is true of every DC element. So, I think that my response here is:
response 1 + response 2 = response 3.
Stuart
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Stuart A. Sutton (206) 685-6618 (V)
University of Washington (206) 616-3152 (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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-----Original Message-----
From: Weibel,Stu [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 9:00 AM
To: 'Stuart Sutton'; 'Liddy Nevile'; Andrew McNaughton
Cc: DC-Education (E-mail)
Subject: RE: Use of Comments v DC.Pedagogy, etc.
I want to emphasize a point we discussed in Katteminga...
Just because the DC community does not endorse a particular element or
qualifier does NOT mean that others might not find it useful, or that it
should not be used.
It is important to distinguish among the following classes of metadata
elements:
a. DC-Interoperability elements/qualifiers:
Entities that are judged to be widely useful
across disciplines... they are Core entities.
b. DC-Domain elements/qualifiers
Entities that are judged to be useful within a domain,
but perhaps not across domains
c. Local elements/qualifiers
Entities that are intended to be useful for local
applications or in a constrained federation of applications,
but perhaps not even widely in a given domain.
Pedagogy strikes me as belonging in the last category, for the following
reasons:
1. there are no agreements in place about standard vocabularies
2. the categorization is heavily value-laden (that is, your judgement
about what terms would apply to a given resource will depend on your
philosophical attachments)
3. there is perhaps little agreement across cultures about what the
values would be
None of this precludes the use of a pedagogy element in a local (or
regional) setting, but rather simply mitigates the probability that it will
be widely adopted.
One last point... We imagine that entities can be promoted from one category
to another... if something works well and turns out to be adopted widely, it
can be bumped up on the interoperability scale.
stu
-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart Sutton [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 10:17 AM
To: 'Liddy Nevile'; Andrew McNaughton
Cc: Stuart Sutton; DC-Education (E-mail)
Subject: RE: Use of Comments v DC.Pedagogy, etc.
Andrew, I, too, agree that sharing/cooperating in the development
of value sets where ever possible will increase the likelihood of
interoperability immensly. There will be instances where such
cooperation may not be possible because of national etc.
differences; however, even there, registry services could handle
cross mappings etc.
Stuart
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------
Stuart A. Sutton (206) 685-6618 (V)
University of Washington (206) 616-3152 (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
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Liddy Nevile [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, March 03, 2000 4:12 AM
To: Andrew McNaughton
Cc: Stuart Sutton; DC-Education (E-mail)
Subject: Re: Use of Comments v DC.Pedagogy, etc.
Andrew
I was prompting you for the sort of explanation you have just given. As
interoperability is of concern, I agree with you idea that shared value sets
will be useful, if we can achieve them.
Liddy
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