Nelly Ivanova [HREF1], Information Officer, Higher Education, education.au limited [HREF2]. 178 Fullarton Rd, Dulwich SA 5065 Email: nivanova@educationau.edu.au
The project investigated the current state of implementation of metadata standards in Australian universities in 2003. The environmental scan aimed to identify existing and emerging metadata standards and metadata application profiles in use by universities, methods of metadata implementation, as well as supporting resources such as guidelines, tools, content management systems and publications by universities on the subject.
The outcome of the environmental scan is this paper which summarises the findings, and the creation of an online community area to support metadata work in the higher education sector and provide a location for the collection of research papers and documents, guidelines, metadata tools, and discussion lists and forum information. This online community area is available at http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/page1059.html.
The environmental scan of metadata in Australian universities has been undertaken by education.au limited as part of its reporting requirements for the administration of the higher education component of the EdNA Online project [www.edna.edu.au] on behalf of the States, Territory and Australian governments through their education departments. The question we set out to answer is 'Are Australian Universities implementing Dublin Core metadata and/or other metadata standards for resource discovery and information management purposes?'
The identification of embedded metadata was limited to the universities' and
their libraries home pages. The findings reported in this document are current
in December 2003, however it is evident from the some of the responses that
many universities are currently working on different aspects of metadata implementation.
It is acknowledged by the time of dissemination of this paper, some of the findings
may be outdated.
The most common description of metadata is 'structured data about other data'.
As described in the Dublin Core Userguide, metadata is:
"… the Internet-age term for information that librarians traditionally
have put into catalogues, and it most commonly refers to descriptive information
about Web resources. A metadata record consists of a set of attributes, or elements,
necessary to describe the resource in question."
There are three main reasons for implementing metadata: resource discovery, resource sharing and resource management (information management).
As metadata is used to describes 'who', 'what', 'when', 'where', 'why', and 'how' about a resource, this resource can then be retrieved in a search and/or browse environment. Some examples are curriculum content repositories, students records' databases, library catalogues, catalogues of products in department stores, events and guides at entertainment agencies. Metadata is what enables efficient and high-precision resource discovery in today's too-rich information space, where the value of a specialised collection of quality assured, metadata-enriched resources is clearly distinguishable from the 'search-all, find-all' approach used by the general search engines.
It is the structured nature of metadata that enables data interchange and makes possible the separation of the content from its presentation. The development and implementation of metadata within a cooperative and collaborative environment enables record sharing and thus reduces duplication of effort. If repositories use structured metadata, or their database fields can be mapped to metadata elements, it is possible to make that content more accessible by sharing it between repositories and providing access to it from multiple nodes.
Metadata can be a powerful information management tool within an organisation
as it can assist in identifying when was the resource published, by whom, who
is responsible for its maintenance, what version it is, who can use this resource
and for what purposes - all this information can become part of the information
associated with a resource and assist in its maintenance.
Metadata can be put to a variety of uses for describing online resources. Metadata implementation may be simple, non-standard (generic) meta tags, through to highly structured metadata based on organisational or internationally recognised metadata standards.
Some of the widely implemented metadata standards in Australia include Dublin Core (DC), Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS), and Learning Objects Metadata (LOM). An extensive list of metadata standards and specifications in use in Australia and internationally is available from the EdNA Online Metadata section at http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/page617.html.
The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative is an open forum engaged in the development of interoperable online metadata standards that support a broad range of purposes and business models. DCMI's activities include consensus-driven working groups, global workshops, conferences, standards liaison, and educational efforts to promote widespread acceptance of metadata standards and practices.
The purpose of the standard is to facilitate search, evaluation, acquisition and use of learning objects by, for instance, learners, instructors or automated software processes. The purpose is also to facilitate the sharing and exchange of learning objects, by enabling the development of catalogues and inventories while taking into account the diversity of cultural and lingual contexts in which the learning objects and their metadata will be exploited.
The AGLS Metadata Standard is a set of 19 descriptive elements which government departments and agencies can use to improve the visibility and accessibility of their services and information over the Internet. It has been mandated for use by Australian Government agencies.
The purpose of EdNA Metadata is to support interoperability across all sectors of education and training in Australia in the area of online resource discovery and management. The standard assists people across education and training engaged in the production and use of well-described digital content. It also supports the technical requirements for well-structured coding of this content to exchange and serve up data on request. The principal application of the standard at present is to facilitate the aggregation of metadata about educational resources, from all states and territories, and all sectors of education and training, for EdNA Online.
Embedded metadata is metadata elements, either standard-based or simple meta-tags, providing information about a resource, that are found in the source of an HTML document. Word, PPT or PDF documents can also contain embedded metadata, usually found in the 'properties' or 'document info' element of the document. Embedded metadata is often used for static resources.
Detached metadata is metadata records about resources, held separately from the resources, that is, in a database. The EdNA Online repository is one example, where metadata records about online resources are held in a database, but the actual resources are not stored in the database. Detached metadata can be used both for static and dynamic resources.
Generic metadata is meta-tags used for describing online resources, often in addition to a standards-based metadata. Some of the most commonly used meta-tags include <title>, <description>, and <keywords>.
Thesaurus: a book of words or of information about a particular field or set of concepts; especially a book of words and their synonyms; a list of subject headings or descriptors usually with a cross-reference system for use in the organization of a collection of documents for reference and retrieval.
A description of the structure given to a set of metadata elements. A metadata scheme or schema defines the relationships between individual metadata elements.
"… organized lists of words and phrases, or notation systems, that are used to initially tag content, and then to find it through navigation or search."
Following are some points on the value of metadata, made at the 2002 NCODE Workshop:
At the same workshop, discussions were held as to what resources should have
metadata, including: web pages, learning objects, library collections, digitised
files, copyright functionality, course material, and university records.
Success in the collection of information about metadata in Australia's 44 universities varied, as it was difficult to identify a single person responsible for metadata implementation. Some universities provide sufficient information on guidelines, standards, tools, at the university's website. In most cases, the request for information was sent to the university's Web Manager (often a generic email address on the home page) or to the University Librarian; in some cases, people who have been previously involved in discussions on metadata were contacted. Some of the contacted people forwarded the request to a more appropriate staff member or have suggested other contacts. The roles held by those who responded or were suggested as relevant contacts varied - including Metadata Coordinator, Information Services Manager, Web Access Librarian, Digital Copyright Application Manager, Webmaster, and Web Development Coordinator. A few universities sent two responses.
The full list of people who responded to the request for information is available
by request.
Data was collected from universities using the following methods:
The email questions sent to universities for response are included in the Appendix. No further investigation beyond gathering information from the universities, and identifying existing embedded metadata on the universities' home pages and library home pages, has been undertaken. That is metadata creation associated with other online resources such as course materials, teaching and learning materials, online publications or individual departments' websites has not been surveyed.
The information collected was compiled under a number of headings. These were:
During 2003 EdNA Online ran 40 free workshop sessions for almost 600 participants about metadata. Many participants were from the higher education sector. Individual universities have subsequently requested additional workshops be held specifically for their staff.
Higher education staff demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of metadata and its place in resource management and discovery, as well as in relation to its important for resource sharing, and semantic web and e-learning applications.
Participants at EdNA Online workshops demonstrated a mix of expertise - ranging from the very experienced, who tended to be mostly library staff and web managers, to those with little or no prior knowledge.
Participants expressed interest in further information and indicated a need for further training on metadata and metadata issues.
During the EdNA Online workshops, participants expressed the view that:
Notes:
1. Universities are rated according to the stage of metadata implementation
2. In some cases, even though sufficient generic metadata can be found the university
is placed in the 'early stage' column, as no Dublin Core Standard metadata.
3. In some cases, where the university has not responded to the request for
information, its allocation in the table is based on observation only.
The degree of implementation of metadata at Australian universities varies.
Some universities have developed, identified and implemented guidelines, metadata
tools or content management systems and training activities, to support metadata
implementation. Others are just beginning the process of establishing processes
and identifying tools and resources.
Responsibility rarely at whole-of-university level
Responsibility for metadata implementation within individual universities tends
to be at the unit/group level, rather than at the whole-of-university level.
Metadata implementation tends to be clustered around high value resources such as a the university home page, the library home page, and/or for resource description for particular high value datasets such as a subject gateway managed and maintained within a university, or a national project such as the Australian Digital Theses project.
Many university libraries have implemented metadata and have created guidelines and provided tools and resources for metadata implementation but frequently these have not been taken up by the wider community within the university.
So, for example, a university may not have metadata on general interest web pages, but may host subject gateways which have extensive, good quality metadata records.
The methods of metadata implementation and its extent varies between universities. Few universities have consistent whole-of-university implementation. Most frequently, metadata is applied at collection level - that is, the home page and important entry points into site content include metadata.
In other cases the same metadata has been applied globally to many pages without customisation to the content of the individual site sections or page content.
Some universities have developed their own thesaurus terms, others have adapted existing schemas. Others are evaluating controlled vocabularies for use in their information management processes.
Most universities have based their metadata on the Dublin Core and AGLS Standards, in addition to implementing additional university-specific elements. Very few universities have included elements from the EdNA Metadata Standard. In some cases no specific standard has been adopted.
CAUL undertook a metadata mapping exercise in 2001. Development in metadata implementation is moving quickly and some changes were identified.
In 2003 ANTA released the Final Report and Recommendations of the VET Learning Object Repository Project. Content packaging, metadata and the specifications to support repository interoperability were identified as areas of particular importance. It was found that a common metadata application profile is critical for resource discovery through repositories.
In February 2004 the report 'Real World Metadata Management for Resource Discovery'
was published. The project involved the University of Tasmania, the State Library
of Tasmania, the Department of Education Tasmania and TAFE Tasmania. An agreed
Tasmanian Metadata Application Profile was drafted, for sharing learning objects
between the participating organisations.
Further research into universities' metadata implementation is needed, perhaps conducted as a collaborative project involving a wide representation from the higher education sector.
Although it has not been the intention of this environmental scanning to provide recommendations to universities on metadata implementation, it is suggested that the recommendations from the abovementioned reports are considered by the higher education sector.
AGLS. Available online [HREF3]
AskDCMI. Available online [HREF4]
ANTA (2003) VET Learning Ojbect Repository Project. Final report and recommendations
CAUL (2001) Survey on the use of metadata in university libraries and campuses
Available online [HREF5]
CETIS Reference. Available online [HREF6]
DCMI. Available online [HREF7]
EdNA Metadata standard. Available online [HREF8]
Interaction of IT Systems and Repositories (IIS&R, COLIS 2003) 'Real world
Metadata Management for Resource Discovery; Proof of concept across education
sectors in Tasmania'. Available online [HREF9]
LOM. Available online [HREF10]
Online Learning and Information Environments - Sydney Workshop 20 February 2002.
Hot Topics - METADATA. Available online [HREF11]
Talmacs, K. (2000) Metadata in the University Environment. VALA 2000 Conference.
Available online [HREF12]
Taxonomy Primer. Available online [HREF13]
Using Dublin Core. Available online [HREF14]
Westera, G. (2001) What Metadata Means For Online Learning. Available online
[HREF15]
EdNA Online appreciates the contributions to this paper made by the higher
education community members and their universities. The full list of contributors
is available by request.