QA For Metadata: Exercise 1

1. QA For Metadata:Exercise 1 This presentation reviews the exercise in use of the <acronym> and <abbr> HTML tags which highlight general issues concerning use of metadata Brian Kelly and Amanda Closier UKOLN Gareth Knight AHDS QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

2. QA For Metadata Exercise 1 • In small groups you attempted exercise 1a: • Policies to ensure your acronyms and abbreviations are interoperable • Procedures to ensure your policies are implemented correctly • We will now review: • Areas of difficulties in using these tags • Justification for using such metadata • Interoperability issues • Quality Assurance QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

3. About <Acronym> and <Abbr> Tags Background • The <abbr>tagindicates an abbreviated form (e.g., WWW, HTML, URI, et al. etc.) and includes initialisms. • The <acronym> tag indicates an acronym (e.g., FAIR, CETIS, etc.). • The title attribute can be used to provide the full or expanded form of an expression. • Examples: • <abbr title="World Wide Web">WWW</abbr> • <acronym title="Joint Information Systems Committee">JISC</abbr> See W3C's definition of these tags QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

4. Benefits Background • Accessibility • Speaking browsers will speak out: • Individual letters of abbreviations – e.g. WWW as Double-You – Double-You – Double-You – Double-You • Acronyms as a word – e.g. JISC as Jisc • Interoperability • Tom Heath's acronym robot can create an automated glossary • See acronym tool - <http://www.materials.ac.uk/acronyms/> QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

5. Acronym Tag: Issues (1) Issues • People don’t know this tag exists! • Confusion over whether <acronym> or <abbr> is used • All acronyms are abbreviations, but all abbreviations are not acronyms • Acronyms can be considered a subset of abbreviations • Lack of consistency in way words are pronounced e.g. FAQ, SQL, URL, … • Changes over time e.g. origins of radar, laser, etc. • Cultural differences (US vs UK English) See discussion of issues QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

6. Acronym Tag: Issues (2) Issues • Some abbreviations are confusing because they: • Are excepted into everyday language e.g. info, Mac • Are abbreviated in one language but spoken in others e.g. e.g short for exempli gratia but used as for example • No longer mean anything e.g. UKOLN • Should they be marked up? Does the reader need more information? How relevant are they? Do we use: <abbr title="exempli gratia" lang="la">e.g.</abbr> <abbr title="for example" lang="en">e.g.</abbr> <abbr title="for example">e.g.</abbr> e.g. QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

7. Acronym Tag: Issues (3) Issues • Issues about how the terms are marked-up: • Nesting decisions e.g. FAQs in the tags vs just FAQ with the 's' left outside (FAQs) • Capitalisation in the meanings e.g. hewlett-packard vs Hewlett-Packard • Punctuation e.g. I.T. vs IT • Formal expansion of chatty text • Changes in meaning of acronym • … <acronym title="Facilitating Access to Information on Learning Technology for Engineers">FAILTE</acronym> or <acronym title="FAILTE stands for Facilitating Access to Information on Learning Technology for Engineers. Failte is also the Gaelic word for Welcome and is pronounced fawl-sha">FAILTE</acronym> QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

8. Acronym Tag: Issues (4) Issues • Do we markup phrases based on: • Policies & definitions • Browser support • Note that Opera & Mozilla support the tags but IE does not • Issues: • The markup takes time and as the most popular browser doesn't support it, it's not worth doing • It's a standard, so we should do it • It provides interoperability, so we should do it • IE is evil, so we should do it • … QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

9. Use automated validators Needs manual checking Acronym Tag: Issues (5) Issues • Markup errors: • <acronym alt="foo"> rather than <acronym title="foo"> • <abbrev> rather than <abbr> • Markup in attributes: • Use of <acronym alt="<b>foo</b>"> or <abbr alt="<u>W</u>orld <u>W</u>ide .. • Invalid characters: • Unescaped character entities such as &(&amp;) • Incorrect content: • <acronym title="Extended Markup Langauge">XML</acronym> QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

10. Acronym Tag: Issues (6) Issues • How should you create and manage your acronym and abbreviation markup? • Create by hand • Functionality provided by your CMS • Dedicated tools e.g. acrobot http://www.accessify.com/tools-and-wizards/acrobot/ QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

11. Acronym Tag: Issues (7) Issues http://www.materials.ac.uk/acronyms/location.asp • Can the benefits provided justify the costs of implementation? • Automated Glossary • The acronym harvester and glossary tool provide a lightweight mechanism for producing a glossary • If every JISC project marked up acronyms on their home page (project names, organisations, technologies) this could provide a simple but effective mechanism for providing a glossary Note the acronyms have been marked up in QA Focus documents – project names come from the case studies QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

12. Acronym Tag: Issues (8) Issues • Choosing Or Creating A Schema • What schema should we use for our metadata (i.e. how do we structure our metadata)? • Do we use a standard schema (good for interoperability) or develop our own (may provide better support for local needs) • Acronym Example: • It would be useful to split acronyms into project names, organisations, technologies and other • Could be implemented with <acronym class="org" title="Joint …" >JISC</ acronym> • But how do we get consensus on schema, implement support in tools, validate, get buy-in, … QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

13. Acronym Tag: Solutions Solutions • To deal with the issues when using the acronym and abbr tags QA Focus have developed: • A documented policy: • Oxford ED  No punctuation • Formal definition – additional info in normal text • A set of procedures: • Staff development  Automated validation • Ad hoc manual checking to spot content errors • Justification – automated glossary for Web site (possibly contributing to glossary across projects?) Ideally support would be built into a CMS, but we currently don't use a CMS QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

14. Conclusions • This simple example illustrates several points: • Metadata is not just about resource discovery • Metadata needs managing • Before you can manage your metadata you will need policies so you (and others) have an agreed and shared understanding • It is always useful to make use of a standard • But standards can sometimes be flawed, inconsistent, etc. • Support for your metadata may also be incomplete • You should think carefully about your approach for managing your metadata • You don't have to use metadata! QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

15. Exercise 1b • You wish to create and manage metadata for your 5,000 tracks on your 20 Gb MP3 player. Additional challenges: application hardwired in player, no open source solution • Issues: • Choice of file format: Universal MP3 or better but more proprietary WMA format • Selection of genres: Leave to central database or use own schema e.g. house, acid, garage vs modern rubbish :-) • File names: Player plays tracks in alphabetic order so need artist – track_no. – track_title and not track_title. But if multiple artists on CD need CD_name – track_no. – track_title • Interoperability: Decisions taken for me & my player or allow for further players, family's music metadata, … • Other issues: Compilation CDs, collections, physical CDs, ... QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

16. Conclusions (1b) • Further conclusions: • Policies are needed even for small-scale personal applications • You can't always program your way out of difficulties • There may be conflicts between local usage and wider interoperability • There is a need to be aware of how applications will use your metadata, so you shouldn't develop your metadata model and policies independently of the applications Note that managing a 20 Gb MP3 music player containing 5,000+ tracks has similarities to managing a small library! QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes

17. Any Questions? QA Focus – Supporting JISC's Digital Library Programmes