Lorna .. Thanks for this, I think ;-)
In fact, I was going to respond to Sarah's original note on lom-cataloguing in a couple of days, as I am not in the office at the moment and would like to confer about a couple of things before a fuller response.
So here is a first note. I will follow up in a few days with some more.
We have had ongoing discussions with JISC and at one stage several licensing possibilities were sketched out which go beyond existing arrangements. However, changes in personnel at JISC and changing priorities meant that these discussions were not pursued to conclusion, although they did prompt the licensing outcomes I describe below. Coincidentally, discussions were revived recently and we hope that something will happen this time.
Lorna's question was posed in terms of licensing. However, there is also a major question about use cases, I think. The full Dewey is a large system, and its current user base is one which is typically fairly intimate with its structure and application. Moving it into other environments poses a range of questions about data and interface. We are experimenting with guided access, selective data export, and terminology services (machine interfaces).
A part of the JISC discussion was about requirements gathering, to see what form of service would be useful in different use scenarios. We still feel that some valuable work could be done here, some of it relevant to the use of any large established vocabulary.
Since the JISC discussion was initiated a couple of things have happened wrt licensing:
As Andy noted in his followup message, the top levels are now available at http://www.oclc.org/research/researchworks/ without charge for non-commercial use. Currently, this is just the data. We will be introducing a forms based interface to this soon, as well as web services interfaces (both REST and SOAP).
There is a CHEST/OCLC agreement for WebDewey and for Abridged WebDewey: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/chest/datasets/webdewey/
Pricing, links to descriptions of these products and other info is available there. I think it is fair to say that these require some specialist knowledge to use effectively.
There are also some custom research licenses where colleagues are using DDC without charge.
I hope this is helpful. I will send another note soon. Regards, Lorcan
Lorcan Dempsey [http://orweblog.oclc.org]
OCLC Research [http://www.oclc.org/research/]
-----Original Message-----
From: The CETIS Metadata Special Interest Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lorna Campbell
Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 1:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Questions re 9. Classification: Second one
Hi there,
I know that Lorcan Dempsey of OCLC used to lurk on this list so I hope he has seen these posts as the issue of licensing of DDC is something I've discussed with him before in the past.
So Lorcan, have OCLC ever made any progress in exploring the issue of coming up with a more workable licensing model for the use of DDC in web based tools, repositories and environments?
Bye
Lorna
On 9 Mar 2005, at 14:48, Ben Ryan wrote:
> Sarah,
> We discontinued with DDC for two reasons, one the licensing
> problems and two due to the subject areas we were working in the early
> years most content got placed in one or two categories that caused
> problems with the browse/search functionality.
> We now use the JACS system that users have reported easier to
> work with due to the subject/topic based nature of the classification.
>
> Regards,
> Ben
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Dr Ben Ryan
> HLSI Software Development Manager
> University of Huddersfield
> Tel: 01484 473587
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> ---------------------------------
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sarah Currier [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 09 March 2005 14:43
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Questions re 9. Classification: Second one
>
> Hi again,
>
> I originally sent this query to the LOM-Cataloguing list but only got
> one relevant response. So I'm trying again here, in case I have more
> luck! Apologies to those who are on both lists (or see it as extra
> nagging if you have a relevant answer and haven't replied yet ;-) ).
>
> Just wondered if folk could say what (if any) universal or general
> subject classification scheme they are using to classify learning
> resources within the LOM? We are trying to decide on one universal
> scheme for our repository, mainly for interoperability purposes rather
> than for our own users (i.e. we will probably auomatically populate
> this classification field with whatever the "social work"
> classification is from the given scheme for when sharing/exposing
> records or resources).
> And add others where (rarely) needed when checking metadata records.
>
> We are looking at the top 2/3 levels of DDC (did the licensing
> problems with this ever get sorted?), or JACS, or the top 2/3 levels
> of learnDirect.
>
> If someone else has looked into this recently or knows of a source of
> such information, please point me in the right direction!
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Best
> Sarah
>
> --
> *******************************************
> Ms. Sarah Currier
> Librarian, Stòr Cùram Project
> "A Storehouse of Learning Resources for Social Care"
> Dept. of Social Work, University of Strathclyde
> c/o: Centre for Academic Practice, University of Strathclyde Graham
> Hills Building, 50 George Street Glasgow G1 1QE, Scotland, United
> Kingdom
> Web: http://www.storcuram.ac.uk/
> Tel.: +44 (0)141 548 4573 Fax: +44 (0)141 553 2053
> E-mail: [log in to unmask] Mob.: +44 (0)7980 855 801
> Stòr Cùram is Gaelic for Storehouse of Care
> *******************************************
>
>
--
Lorna M. Campbell
Assistant Director, CETIS
University of Strathclyde
+44 (0)141 548 3072
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
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