Metadata

1. Metadata Helen Aristar Dry Eastern Michigan University LINGUIST List Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

2. Outline • What is metadata? • Why use OLAC metadata? • How can you write OLAC metadata for your resources? • Metadata in XML • Using ORE Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

3. Preliminaries • Language documentation is valuable only if it is findable • On the Internet, this means “findable by computational means” • Efficient search and retrieval of language resources requires the use of metadata Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

4. Metadata is: • Structured data about data • Similar to catalogue information • Usually consists of a set of elements, each of which describes a property of the resource • The elements of a metadata set can be encoded in different “languages,” e.g., html, xml, rdf/xml Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

5. An example • Title: Biao Min Data • Creator (depositor): David Solnit • Subject (linguistic field): Language Description • Subject (language): Biao Min • Date created: April 5, 1982 • Description: The Biao Min data on the E-MELD site includes over 3,000 lexical items. . . . . Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

6. Example in HTML • <meta name=“DC.title“ content=“Biao Min Data” /> • <meta name=“DC.creator” content=“David Solnit” /> • <meta name=“DC.subject” content=“Language Description” /> • <meta name=“DC.subject” content=“Biao Min” /> • <meta name=“DCTERMS.created” content=“1982-04-05” /> • <meta name=“DC.description” content=“The Biao Min data on the E-MELD site includes over 3,000 lexical items. . . . .” /> Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

7. Example in XML • <title> Biao Min Data </title> • <creator xsi:type="olac:role" olac:code="depositor"> David Solnit </creator> • <subject xsi:type="linguistic-field" olac:code="language_description"/> • <subject xsi:type="olac:language" olac:code="x-sil-BJE"> Biao Min </subject> Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

8. Metadata • Different metadata specifications: MARC, METS, Dublin Core, IMDI, OLAC • IMDI & OLAC designed specifically for language documentation Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

9. OLAC Metadata • Product of the Open Language Archives Community http://www.language-archives.org/ • Strengths: • Ease of creation • Search & retrieval via the protocols of the Open Archives Initiative Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

10. Open Archives Initiative • Cross-disciplinary initiative for search and retrieval of metadata from multiple archives • Establishes protocols for “harvesting” metadata records of participating archives and making them available via “Service Providers.” • Supports formation of discipline-specific sub-communities such as OLAC (Open Language Archives Community) Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

11. LINGUIST List = OLAC Gateway • LINGUIST List is the main service provider for OLAC • Harvests metadata from 27 major archives • Collects metadata from individual linguists about their language documentation • Offers search interface for over 30,000 records of language-related data • See: http://linguistlist.org/olac/ Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

12. OLAC Metadata • OAI uses the Dublin Core (DC) metadata standard • 15 elements (each optional & repeatable) • Core vocabulary for refining elements (dcterms) • Sub-communities may qualify DC metadata to suit their specific needs • OLAC has qualified DC metadata to better describe language resources. Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

13. OLAC Qualifies 5 of the 15 DC Elements • Language • Publisher • Relation • Rights • Source • Subject • Title • Type • Contributor • Coverage • Creator • Date • Description • Format • Identifier Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

14. OLAC recommends 5 extensions: • Contributor • Role • Creator • Role • Language • OLAC language • Subject • OLAC Language • Linguistic Field • Type • Linguistic Data Type • Discourse Type Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

15. Participant Role • Provides a controlled vocabulary for identifying the role of a Creator or Contributor more precisely. The vocabulary identifies approximately twenty roles that are common in the development of language resources. • Examples: depositor, signer, transcriber, respondent, editor, consultant, researcher. • Documentation: http://www.language-archives.org/REC/role.html Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

16. Language Identification: • Provides codes for identifying all known languages, both living and extinct. • Applies to: Language, Subject Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

17. Linguistic Field • Provides codes for identifying the content of a resource as relevant to a particular subfield of linguistic science • Applies to: Subject • Examples:anthropological_linguistics , applied_linguistics, cognitive_science, computational_linguistics , lexicography, discourse_analysis, Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

18. Linguistic Data Type • Describes the resource as representing a recognized structural type of linguistic information • Applies to: Type • Examples: • Lexicon • Primary text • Language description • Dataset (Already in DCterms). Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

19. Discourse Type • Provides a controlled vocabulary for identifying approximately ten discourse types. It is used with Type to identify the genre of a language resource (particularly a primary text). Types: Interactive Discourse, Report, Singing, Oratory, Narrative, Formulaic Discourse, Procedural Discourse, Language Play, Unintelligible Speech • http://www.language-archives.org/REC/discourse.html Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA

20. Writing metadata • See “metadata” in the E-MELD School of Best Practices: http://emeld.org/school/classroom/metadata • Or use the OLAC Repository Editor: See: http://linguistlist.org/ore/ Symposium on Best Practice LSA, Boston, MA