On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Phil Barker wrote:
> >
> > I'm not so sure about this. While I agree that in theory that
> > assignment should be independent of workflow I don't know whether this
> > is really practical. Although the primary aim of the UKCMF is to
> > facilitate interoperability, a no less important goal is to simplify the
> > creation of metadata as much as possible. Part of this simplification
> > will probably (hopefully?) involve repositories generating as many of
> > the UKCMF fields as possible. In the back of my mind I had envisaged
> > that identifiers would also be generated automatically but I have to
> > confess I hadn't thought through the practicalities and implications of
> > this approach. Still I can't help wondering how many authors are likely
> > to add identifiers to resources and metadata at the point of creation
> > rather than assuming that the database or repository will do it for them
> > at the point of upload?
>
> But what if the creator uploads the object to two repositories which assign
> two different identifiers? Nothing wrong with that, until a third
> repository (or resolving service, or cross searching portal) gets hold of
> [metadata for] both copies and needs to work out whether they are
> duplicates [and it will need to work out whether what it has are two
> different metadata records for one resource, or duplicate metadata records].
Exactly. I think it would be great if the repository could assign the
identifier - for most users that would probably be their preferred option.
I'm just saying that we don't want to be in a situation where the *only*
option is for the repository to assign the identifier.
It should be possible for the RELOAD tool to be able to assign the
identifier, or for the creator to assign an identifier without having to
use any tool.
Andy
--
Distributed Systems, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY, UK
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/a.powell +44 1225 383933
Resource Discovery Network http://www.rdn.ac.uk/
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