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This is a presentation I gave at the Archival Education and Research Institute at UCLA, July 9, 2009.
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User Understanding of Dublin Core Metadata in Digital Image Collections
Kathleen FearJuly 9, 2009
• Introduction
• Methodology
• Findings
• Discussion and Conclusions
Is the Dublin Core metadata provided in a digital collection perceived to be useful?
Introduction
Methodology Study population Methods: survey, focus group and
search testing
Findings
Discussion and Conclusions
Methodology: Study population
• 78 subjects (72 undergraduates; 6 graduate students)
• 41 unique majors
• Recruited randomly in the undergraduate library; from SI110; and using Ex-Lab
Two or three times a month A few times a week Almost every day0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Reported frequency of search engine use
Num
ber
of
Subje
cts
How often do you use Google or another search engine? (n=78)
“Almost every day”
(72)
How often do you search for images using Google Images, Flickr or another service? (n=78)
Never A few times a year
Two or three times a month
A few times a week
Almost every day
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Reported frequency of image searching
Num
ber
of
Subje
cts
“A few times a
week” (38)
In the past year, how often did you use an online library catalog? (n=78)
Never A few times a year
Two or three times a month
A few times a week
Almost every day
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Reported frequency of online library catalog use
Num
ber
of
Subje
cts
“A few times a
year” (37)
Search Expertise (n=78)
It is
som
etim
es h
ard
for m
e to
find
wha
t I'm
look
ing
for
It is
occa
siona
lly h
ard
for m
e to
find
wha
t I’m
look
ing
for
It is
rare
ly h
ard
for m
e to
find
wha
t I’m
look
ing
for
It is
neve
r har
d fo
r me
to fi
nd w
hat I
’m lo
okin
g fo
r05
101520253035
Reported perceptions of ease in searching
Num
ber
of
Subje
cts
“It is rarely hard for me to find
what I’m looking for” (32)
Survey (n=50)
What information do users think is useful?
How do they express that information?
Methodology: Survey
• Task 1: What information is useful?
“Imagine you are searching for images to put in a PowerPoint for class…what information would be useful when deciding whether an image meets your criteria or not?”
Methodology: Survey
• Task 2: Ranking DC elements
Definitely not
useful
Definitely useful
Contributor 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know what this
means
Coverage 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know what this means
Creator 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know what this means
Date 1 2 3 4 5 I don’t know what this means
Focus Groups (n=18)
What information do users think is useful and why?
How do they interpret the DC elements?
Methodology: Focus group
• Task 1: What information is
useful?
• Discussion
• Task 2: Rating DC elements
• Task 3: Card sorting
• Task 4: Definitions
Search Testing (n=10)
Do users behave in ways that align
with what they say?
What information do users find useful in an actual collection?
Methodology: Search testing
• Environment: Claremont Colleges Digital Library
• Training task: Find a bullfighter and the date associated with the image
• Task: Find 5 images relating to ‘pioneer life’ in California at the end of the 19th century
• Reflection questions and exit interview
Introduction
Methodology
Findings User reported ‘useful’ elements User understanding of Dublin
Core elements
Discussion and Conclusions
Findings: User-reported
‘useful’ information
Categories of useful information
1. information about the image gathered by looking at the image itself or a thumbnail
Information about the image gathered from the image itself
ElementFrequenc
yComments
Content 61
“I would […] take a look at the large images/pictures to make sure this is the exact images/pix that I need.”
Look 38“Professional aesthetic (or comic aesthetic if desired)”
Categories of useful information
2. information about the file and using the file gathered by reading textual information accompanying the image or the website as a whole
Information about using the image gathered from text
Element Frequency Comments
Size 35“Size of image (high resolution)”
Functionality
18
“Ability to copy + paste image without distortion”“ability to save the picture in an easily accessible format”
Rights 9
“depending on the project I usually avoid pictures from personal sites / may be copyrighted”
Categories of useful information
3. information about the image gathered by reading accompanying textual information
Information about the image gathered from text
Element Frequency Comments
Publisher 19“website from where the image is from”
Description/
Subject14
“Textual descriptions”“Usually, I look in the description for similar words that I typed in.”
Title 3 “Artist’s title factors in”
Creator 2
“the photographer's reputation (National Geographic is better than my neighbor)”
Categories of useful information
4. information about the image gathered from clues in the search or collection interfaces
Information about the image gathered from collection interface
Element Frequency Comments
Relevance indicators
3
“if the image is shown in the first few pages of my search”“if there multiple images of the same picture on the results page, then that means it’s popular”
Findings: User understanding of
Dublin Core elements
Dublin Core Element RankingsFocus Group 1 Focus Group 2
More useful
subject descriptionrelation formatdescription subjectidentifier sourceformat date
Less useful
source titletitle publisherlanguage identifierpublisher coveragecoverage language
Dublin Core Element RankingsFocus Group 1 Focus Group 2
More useful
subject descriptionrelation formatdescription subjectidentifier sourceformat date
Less useful
source titletitle publisherlanguage identifierpublisher coveragecoverage language
Dublin Core Element RankingsFocus Group 1 Focus Group 2
More useful
subject descriptionrelation formatdescription subjectidentifier sourceformat date
Less useful
source titletitle publisherlanguage identifierpublisher coveragecoverage language
Dublin Core Element RankingsFocus Group 1 Focus Group 2
More useful
subject descriptionrelation formatdescription subjectidentifier sourceformat date
Less useful
source titletitle publisherlanguage identifierpublisher coveragecoverage language
Dublin Core Element RankingsFocus Group 1 Focus Group 2
More useful
subject descriptionrelation formatdescription subjectidentifier sourceformat date
Less useful
source titletitle publisherlanguage identifierpublisher coveragecoverage language
Dublin Core Element RankingsFocus Group 1 Focus Group 2 Rating
Data
More useful
subject description subject
relation formatdescription
description subject typeidentifier source formatformat date relation
Less useful
source title identifiertitle publisher date
language identifiercontributor
publisher coverage creatorcoverage language publisher
Dublin Core Element RankingsFocus Group 1 Focus Group 2 Rating
Data
More useful
subject description subject
relation formatdescription
description subject typeidentifier source formatformat date relation
Less useful
source title identifiertitle publisher date
language identifiercontributor
publisher coverage creatorcoverage language publisher
Χ2=0.3 p =0.8607
Introduction
Literature review
Methodology
Findings
Discussion and Conclusions
Description
Listed by survey and focus group participants as potentially useful?
Identified by search testing participants as useful?
YES
YES
1. Subject2. Description3. Type4. Format5. Relation6. Source7. Title8. Language9. Coverage10. Rights11. Identifier12. Date13. Contributor14. Creator15. Publisher
More useful
Less useful
Description
An account of the resource.
FG1: The caption underneath the picture, a thorough and in-depth
summary.
FG2: What it looks like, what's going on there.
Publisher
Listed by survey and focus group participants as potentially useful?
Identified by search testing participants as useful?
YES
NO
1. Subject2. Description3. Type4. Format5. Relation6. Source7. Title8. Language9. Coverage10. Rights11. Identifier12. Date13. Contributor14. Creator15.Publisher
More useful
Less useful
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available.
FG1: The rights-holder (the creator or whoever bought the image from the
creator).
FG2: The name of the publisher if it was a professional picture and was in
the newspaper, etc.
Source
Listed by survey and focus group participants as potentially useful?
Identified by search testing participants as useful?
NO
NO
1. Subject2. Description3. Type4. Format5. Relation6. Source7. Title8. Language9. Coverage10. Rights11. Identifier12. Date13. Contributor14. Creator15. Publisher
More useful
Less useful
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived.
FG1: The website where the image came from.
FG2: Where the image is from, the website.
Dublin Core Vocabulary
“It's just like really generic words...they're
nice words that everyone can just see and understand what's
coming next.”
Relation
Listed by survey and focus group participants as potentially useful?
Identified by search testing participants as useful?
YES
NO
1. Subject2. Description3. Type4. Format5. Relation6. Source7. Title8. Language9. Coverage10. Rights11. Identifier12. Date13. Contributor14. Creator15. Publisher
More useful
Less useful
Relation
A related resource.
FG1: Relevance to your search terms.
FG2: How the image is relevant.
But what about context?
“And relation, like, that would seem like how it relates to my search, but that's nothing to do with it actually.” (U01)
“… I don't really know what that means, I guess. Like, relation to what?” (U09).
“I don't really know what relation means, at least in this context” (U07)
“Relation, is that like related images? Because I was kind of looking for that.” (U05)
Conclusions
• Users are not blank slates
• Dublin Core provides useful information
• Dublin Core vocabulary can be misleading or incomprehensible
Thank you!
• Questions?
• This work was supported by a Rackham Graduate Student Research Grant.
• Thank you to Beth Yakel and Soo Young Rieh for their advice, feedback and support!
Kathleen FearSchool of Information, University of [email protected]/~kfear
