EASEL@MEG

1. EASEL@MEG Neil Evans-Mudie neil.evans-mudie@fdgroup.com Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd. http://www.fdgroup.co.uk/fde

2. Educators Access to Service in the Electronic Landscape http://www.fdgroup.co.uk/easel Funded by: EU 5th Framework - IST Initiative Partners spanning Austria, Ireland, Italy, Spain, UK include GIUNTI Publishing and The Open University. Lead Partner: Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd. Project Manager: Ricky.Kay@fdgroup.com EASEL@MEG

3. EASEL@MEG: Story I Re-purposing of existing digital resources to create new offerings. (Content) Creation Upload Storage Search Retrieval Restructuring / Re-purposing Export (Adaptive content) Content / LMS Interworking

4. EASEL: Story - end to end use • Maintain repository records • Edit CCK course • Search / Select / Preview existing learning resources • Add selection to CCK course • Structure CCK course • Publish course to LMS (or Repository / other third party e.g. ‘file’) [New] CCK Course Search / Select Iterative process [Add] Restructure More? Yes No Publish

5. Components: Digital Repository (DR) Semantic Registry (SR) Local & Remote Search Gateways Course Constructor Kit (CCK) Content: Granular, learning objects (LOBJs) Adaptive (? How to present this as granular.) Interworking (bookmarks, annotations, results) data model choice (UfI / SCORM?) EASEL@MEG: Story II

6. Open specifications: Metadata Delivery Content / LMS Interworking EASEL@MEG: Story III

7. EASEL@MEG: DR (limited) Multi-schema search in parallel. Parallel schema searching. Extensible – multiple targets or DRs. Search solution using Z39.50 protocol Bespoke web-based technology for DR functionality : Upload Storage Retrieval

8. EASEL@MEG: DR - Metadata Schemas DCMES <dc> <title alternative="Le Petit Prince">The Little Prince</title> <language>en</language> <subject>fiction</subject> </dc> IMSMD <record> <general> <title><langstring lang="en">The Little Prince</langstring></title> <keywords><langstring lang="en">fiction</langstring></keywords> </general> <classification> <purpose><langstring lang="en">discipline</langstring></purpose> <description><langstring lang="en">fiction</langstring></description> </classification> </record> Proprietary Legacy (e.g. rdbms) content schemas.

9. EASEL@MEG: DR - Interoperability issues Specification claims “The IEEE LOM specification contains elements that can be mapped to the DCMES.” But binding details make interoperability non-trivial because: (a) Design Inter-domain / Intra-domain Inline metadata / Standalone metadata (b) Structure (c) Vocabularies ((d) Language ?!!)

10. EASEL@MEG: DC Info. Model I 20 members Plus qualifier members EASEL has found requirments for both: Exclusion of existing qualifiers and Addition of new qualiifers. Difficult to find an clear statement of an DCMES information model No comprehensive (incl. Qualifiers & DCMES(Ed)) DCMES XML binding. Unexpected major task for EASEL project

11. EASEL@MEG: DC Info. Model: Elem.’s & Attr.’s Content Model Attributes Produced from TIBCOExtensibility XML Authority See d:\data\documents\easel\meg\dc.htm

12. EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member I Semantic and Vocabulary: Title* What is the purpose of dc/title/alternative in a digital landscape? Creator Assumption made to map dc/creator as vCard ‘formatted name’. (Has the role of vCard really been thought out within IMSMD.) No provision within DCMES for stating whether member is individual or corporate. Subject* Contextualisation problem within IMSMD (relies upon the value of record/classification/purpose/langstring=“discipline”). Mapping of dc/subject to both record/general/keywords/… and record/classification/… depending on the existence of dc/subject/scheme. Description*

13. Publisher Ditto dc/creator comments. Creator Ditto dc/creator comments. Date Mapped to record/lifecycle/contribute/role=“publisher”. Information loss because ‘qualifiers’ cannot be mapped. Format variance (DCMI Period). Type Competitive vocabularies reflecting inter- / intra-domain schema design origins. Format dc/format/extent maps to both record/technical/size or /duration. Choice is dependent upon voluntary use of file size unit of measure (i.e. b, Mb, Gb, etc.) EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member II

14. Identifier Source Language Relation Coverage Loss of spatial / temporal contextualisation Rights Audience Mapped to record/educational/intendedenduserrole - restrict vocabularly to match IMS member, from {Teacher, Author, Learner, Manager} Propose an additional qualifier - learning context (learningcontext) with a restricted vocabularly from {PrimaryEducation, Secondary Education, Higher Education, University First Cycle, University Second Cycle, University Postgrade, Technical School First Cycle, Technical School Second Cycle, Professional Formation, Continuous Formation, Vocational Training, Other} - Is this a consistent, good vocabularly? EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member III

15. Standard Mapped to general/clasification@purpose=“standard”. Again processing complexities due to the contextualisation nature of the IMS purpose member. Interactivity Type Interactivity Level Typical Learning Time Format variance (DCMI Period). EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member IV * language impact?!!

16. Binding structures: Index entry duplication during DR upload process. De-contextualise IMSMD members during upload to DRs to facilitate ‘exotic’ (e.g. FDI’s AGORA) metadata record retrieval and presentation. Use existing, well-known, published Z39.50 TAG sets e.g. ‘meta.tag’, ‘tagsetg.tag’, ‘tagsetm.tag’. Vocabularies Sensible adoption and refinement of existing vocabularies. Strong candidate for impacting specification(s)’s agencies. Inter-discipline skills (domain, library). DC vocabularies must be voluntarily adopted - XML control documents only spec. attribute content. EASEL@MEG: Interop. Issues by Member: Soln’s

17. EASEL@MEG: Limitations. Local search gateway discourse. Interoperability achieved by mapping schemas to each other. Therefore, new schemas need to be mapped to ALL existing schemas within DR(s) - considerable effort, possibly duplicating past effort [a few subtle differences :-)] EASEL also exploring a Remote search gateway. Interoperability achieved through the use of a Semantic Registry (and a universal semantic class schema). Therefore, new schemas need to be mapped only ONCE to existing SR classes. Parallels with MEG’s own Registry (contact: Pete Johnson, UKOLN).

18. EASEL@MEG: Future Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd. & EASEL promote the ADOPTION of open specification(s). Adoption with vendor feedback to the specification(s)’s agencies for the modification of their schemas to support our (customers) requirements. FDE Ltd. supports national initiatives, such as MEG, to engage with the open specifications process and work towards a model of: national adoption, new national requirements and national feedback.

19. EASEL@MEG: Future not area, area, area but VOCABULARIES, VOCABULARIES, VOCABULARIES LOCAL BEST PRACTICE, LOCAL BEST PRACTICE

20. EASEL@MEG Neil Evans-Mudie neil.evans-mudie@fdgroup.com Fretwell-Downing Education Ltd. http://www.fdgroup.co.uk/fde