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

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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