A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
The MEG Metadata Schemas Registry
Pete Johnston, Research Officer (Interoperability), UKOLN, University of Bath
UKOLN Staff Seminar
Bath, 25 June, 2003
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
The MEG Registry
• Metadata schemas registries
• MEG & the MEG registry
• The MEG registry data model
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Metadata Schemas Registries
• What is a metadata schemas registry? – Application that provides access to information
on metadata vocabularies, their components, and related resources
• What is a metadata schemas registry for?– Disclosure/discovery/selection– Navigation of relationships– For various purposes….
• "publication", convergence, tool support….
• For human readers & software agents
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Metadata for Education Group (MEG)
• Facilitated by Interoperability Focus• Forum for discussing provision of
educational resources at all levels across UK
• Encourage consistency of approaches to description
• Use of DESIRE registry, 2000-2002• Disclosure, implementation/localisation,
"convergence"
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
MEG Registry Project
• Funded by JISC/BECTa, 2002• Re-engineering of DESIRE registry as RDF
application• Shaped by work in SCHEMAS project• Some refinement of data model• Uses RDFS, but not (currently) OWL• Developed by Dave Beckett (server – Perl,
Redland), Damian Steer (client – Java, Jena)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
MEG Schemas Registry
• Reads machine-readable descriptions of metadata vocabularies– descriptions stored in Schemas (RDF/XML)– publication API (HTTP POST)
• also admin interface (HTTP GET)
• Indexes those descriptions• Provides browse/search interfaces for
– human readers (HTML)– software tools
• query API (HTTP GET) http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/ http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/
MEGClient
Vocabulary managers
MEG Registry (Server) Database
OtherApplications
(including other
Registries)
Information seekers
Webbrowser
RDF/XML
HTML browseinterface
Upload API (HTTP POST)
Query API (HTTP GET)
RDF/XML
RDF/XML(Schemas)
RDF/XML(Schemas)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
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The registry data model
• A simplification of complexity• Based on
– Dublin Core "Grammatical Principles"• Elements• Element Refinements• Encoding Schemes
– "Application Profile"• May "use" elements from multiple element sets• May specify obligation/cardinality• May specify encoding schemes• May narrow "standard" element semantics
AgencyElement
Set
AppProfile
Encoding Scheme
Element
ElementUsage
Value
1m
1
m
1
m
m m
1 m
m
m
1
m1m
1
m
m
1
reg:uses
reg:uses
http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title
A name given to the resource
rdfs:comment
rdf:Property
rdf:type
reg:isElementOf
reg:ElementUsage
rdf:type
http://.../qualifieddc/title
reg:uses
reg:isUsageIn
http://.../rslpcoll/title
reg:ElementUsage
rdf:type
The name of the collection
rdfs:comment
reg:uses
reg:isUsageIn
1. Registry browse menu http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/ http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/
2. Display Element Set
3. Display Element
4. Display Element Usage
1. Create Application Profile description
Add AP
descriptionto Schema
Add AP details
2. Create Element Usage description
Search registry for
“title”Elements
Drag Element
To Profile
3. Create Element Usage description
Add Element
Usagedescriptionto Schema
Add ElementUsagedetails
4. Save Schema as RDF/XML
File -- Save As
Confirm
5. Submit Schema to Server
Click to submit
Finish
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Some issues
• Is the registry data model generally useful? – Or too simple? Too DC-oriented?– Need Schemas in data model
• Review registry vocabulary– DCMI schema updates– RDF datatyping– OWL - Rich metadata about properties
• API is simple• To what extent can registry support non-RDF
applications? (IEEE LOM in XML)
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
Acknowledgements
• UKOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK higher and further education funding councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.
• http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
A centre of expertise in digital information management
www.ukoln.ac.uk
The MEG Metadata Schemas Registry
Pete Johnston, Research Officer (Interoperability), UKOLN
UKOLN Staff Seminar
Bath, 25 June, 2003