Towards a harmonization of metadata application profiles for agricultural learning repositories

26 August 2008Gauri Salokhe, IAALD-AFITA-WCCA, August

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Towards a harmonization of Towards a harmonization of metadata application profiles formetadata application profiles foragricultural learning repositoriesagricultural learning repositories

Nikos Manouselis, Gauri Salokhe, Johannes Keizer and Stephen

Rudgard


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IntroductionIntroduction metadata interoperability has been judged

as an essential issue in education and training context exchange and preservation of crucial learning

and teaching information and its reuse among a large number of different systems and repositories.

currently used standards include: IEEE Learning Object Metadata (IEEE LOM), Dublin Core and ISO Metadata for Learning Resources


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Context of AgricultureContext of Agriculture

learning technology (LT) specifications and standards have not been yet widely adopted

few implementations exist – primarily IEE LOM, DC or combination of the two

efforts have been distributed and dispersed, leaving space to approaches with significant differences between them


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Agricultural Learning Repositories Task Force (AgLR-TF)

AIM: to create a network of organizations which will promote the development of a global infrastructure that will facilitate sharing and reusing of learning resources


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Activities of the Task ForceActivities of the Task Force

1. Building a community 2. inventory of agricultural learning repositories 3. Organize an e-conference 4. Produce an initial set of best practice

recommendations, concerning implementing interoperable metadata in agricultural learning repositories;

5. Deploying a pilot demonstrator of federating learning repositories on a global scale.


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Community building Website – http://aglr.aua.gr/ Discussion Forum -

http://www.dgroups.org/groups/fao/AgLR-TF/index.cfm 20 partners (CGIAR, GFAR, Intut, COL, etc.) > 120 registered participants to the list from

over 26 countries


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Inventory of repositories


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Inventory of repositories – Repository Description Form


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e-Conference AgLR 2008, April 24 – June 15, 2008

http://aglr.aua.gr/econf.php dialogue around agricultural learning

resources held as an electronically facilitated discussion Follow up event: Workshop on Learning

Technology Standards for Agriculture and Rural Development (AgroLT), September 19, 2008 http://infolab-dev.aua.gr/agrolt/2008/


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Best practices and recommendations survey of metadata schemas carried out in

cooperation with the European Standardization Committee CEN/ISSS (WS-LT)

http://www.cen.eu/isss/workshop/lt/ Report on “Guidelines and recommendations for

building metadata application profiles for agricultural learning resources”. The report provides:

overview of the way metadata application profiles are implemented

detailed summary and comparative analysis of approaches followed

guidelines and recommendations to existing or new developers of agricultural repositories


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Demo application

In collaboration with Organic.Edunet and ARIADNE Foundation

Demonstrate the exchange of learning resources related to organic agriculture using Open Access Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/

silo2006/NewFederatedQuery.do


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Evaluation of Application Evaluation of Application ProfilesProfiles closer collaboration was established between

European Committee for Standardization and AgLR-TF

joint team to analyze and provide recommendations

analysis, based on CWA15555 conformance aspects:

documentation scope & purpose selection of elements allowed vs. non-allowed modifications of base schema

(conformance) mapping of elements to base schema(s)

CWA 15555 (2006). Guidelines and support for building application profiles in e-learninghttp://www.cen-isss-wslt.din.de/sixcms_upload/media/3050/CWA15555.pdf


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ProcessProcess

review & analysis of existing APs (March’08)

mappings to relevant standards/schemas (April’08)

comparative study (May’08) initial report with list of

suggestions/recommendations to AP developers (June ‘08)


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Evaluated APsEvaluated APs Rural-eGov IEEE LOM AP (ReGovLOM) FAO Agricultural Learning Resources AP (FAO Ag-

LR) CGIAR LOM Core AP (CG LOM Core) BIOAGRO LOM AP Biosci Education Network (BEN) AP Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource

Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP) AP

TrAgLor LOM AP Intute: Health and Life Sciences AP (Intute AP) EcoLearnIT LOM AP


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MappingsMappings


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General observations (1/3)General observations (1/3)

Most common generic elements Title; Language; Description; Keyword

(free text or restricted); and Coverage (geographical/spatial or temporal).

life cycle of the resource Role of the entities that have

contributed to the resource; Information about these entities; Date of contribution/production/publication.


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Technical characteristics format; location (such as URL); Size;

Some technical requirements for its viewing/execution.

educational characteristics type of the learning resource; Intended

end user role; Educational context/level.


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copyrights Cost; Copyrights and restrictions in use.

formal classification type of classification; classification

system used (very often AGROVOC or some other agricultural knowledge organization scheme); Terms used from the selected classification system.


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suggestions to developerssuggestions to developers (1/2)(1/2)

1. Always provide supportive documentation describing the AP

2. Document supportive use cases that help clarify its scope, purpose and users

3. Document reference to the technical implementation of the AP and provide any relevant technical bindings

4. Use the latest and most stable version of the base schema available

5. When using ad-hoc or extended value spaces make them available in a public namespace


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suggestions to developerssuggestions to developers (2/2)(2/2)

6. Instead of substituting the ‘Langstring’ datatype with the simpler ‘Characterstring’, it is suggested that simplicity is sought though appropriate interface design

7. The non-allowed modification rules of CWA 15555 should be respected to ensure no problems when trying to export/exchange metadata

8. The elements most often occurring as mandatory in the existing APs should be considered for use also in other APs


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ConclusionConclusion

established community of partners cross-searching/sharing of data now

possible through the mappings guidelines to support and give

feedback to organizations that are designing, implementing and operating agricultural learning repositories to ensure improved coherence!


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ReferencesReferences CWA 15555 (2006). Guidelines and support for building application profiles in e-

learning [Online]. Available at: http://www.cen-isss-wslt.din.de/sixcms_upload/media/3050/ CWA15555.pdf (verified 20 June 2008). European Committee for Standardization (CEN).

DC (2004). Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1: Reference Description. Dublin Core Org.

IEEE LOM (2002). Draft Standard for Learning Object Metadata, IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee, IEEE 1484.12.1-2002.

ISO/IEC MLR (2005). Working Draft for ISO/IEC 19788-2 – Metadata for Learning Resources – Part 2: Data Elements, ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36.

Manouselis, N., Kastradas, K., Salokhe, G., Najjar, J., Stracke, C.M. and Duval, E. (2008). Results from a Study of the Implementation of Metadata Application Profiles in Agricultural Learning Repositories. in Proceedings of the Workshop on Learning Technology Standards for Agriculture and Rural Development (AgroLT 2008), 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Bio and Earth Sciences (HAICTA 2008), Athens, Greece, September 19, 2008.

Najjar, J., Ternier, S. and Duval, E. (2004). Interoperability of Learning Object Repositories: Complications and Guidelines [Online]. Available at: http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~najjar/papers/IadiswwwJournal.pdf (verified 20 June 2008). IADIS International Journal of WWW/Internet.

Stuempel, H., Salokhe, G., Aubert, A., Keizer, J., Nadeau, A., Katz, S. and Rudgard, S. (2007). Metadata Application Profile for Agricultural Learning Resources. in Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Metadata and Semantics Research (MTSR' 07), Corfu, Greece, October 2007.


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Thank you!Thank you!

Gauri Salokhe ([email protected])