DC2003 Application profiles

1
Metadata Schema Registries update on current
activity
Rachel Heery, UKOLN, University of
Bath www.ukoln.ac.uk September 2005
2
Some current activities

• DCMI Registry (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative)
• JISC Metadata Schema Registry (UK Joint
  Information Systems Committee of the Higher
  Education Funding Agency)
• NSDL Registry (National Science Digital Library
  Cornell University and University of Washington)
• DEST Registry (Department of Education, Science
  and Training, Australia)

3
DCMI Registry benefits

• Simplify the discovery of terms and illustrate
  the relationship between terms.
• Promote the use of Dublin Core
• Provide a trusted source of information about
  Dublin Core terms and related vocabularies.
• Make the registry software available to the
  community as open-source

4
DCMI Registry current status

• Developed by Harry Wagner, OCLC, with input from
  DCMI Registry WG
• Deployed by DCMI to provide navigational access
  to Dublin Core terms
• Software available using Subversion from OCLC
• Web and Application interfaces supported
• Search browse functions provided
• International support for 25 languages
• Support for SOAP and REST style Web services
• Full support for local extensions
• Distributed as open source, built entirely on
  open source/open standards
• Deployed as a distributed architecture
• Light version also available

5
DCMI Registry 2005 accomplishments

• Version 3.3.9
• Better packaging of software
• Statistics package
• Added metadata and UI translations for Maori
• Updated Greek metadata and UI translations
• New installation National Library of New Zealand
• Registry Lite
• Simple installation (binary deliverable)
• In-memory - no persistence
• Client-side XML transformations
• REST-only application interface

6
DCMI Registry distributed sites

• OCLC, Dublin Ohio
• University of Tsukuba, Japan
• Mitsuharu Nagamori
• The University of Goettingen, Germany
• Thomas Fischer
• The Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
  China
• National Library of New Zealand
• Karen Rollitt

7
DCMI Registry Lite

• Designed for easy implementation.
• Tested successfully with Redhat Linux servers and
  should work for other Linux / Unix operating
  systems
• Windows servers may require a minor tweak in the
  way directories are accessed.
• Supports vocabularies other than Dublin Core.
• Vocabulary must be encoded in RDF
• The application war file and source code are
  available here http//wip.dublincore.org/download
  s/
• There is still some work to be completed!

8
JISC Metadata Schema Registry

• Funded by the UK Joint Information Systems
  Committee (JISC) which funds initiatives in
  higher education
• One of several shared services for the JISCs
  digital Information Environment
• Registering application profiles customised,
  extended versions of standard schemas
• Partners
• ILRT, University of Bristol (Dave Beckett, Nikki
  Rogers)
• UKOLN, University of Bath (Pete Johnston, Rachel
  Heery)
• Becta, CETIS

9
JISC Metadata Schema Registry motivation

• Requirement from projects to
• Locate appropriate terms
• Ensure they use authoritative version
• Manage evolution of term sets
• Requirement from funders for
• Projects to declare terms in use
• Projects to re-use terms where possible
• Reduction of duplicated effort

10
JISC Metadata Schema Registry benefits

• Single point of access for the UK education
  community to information about terms used in DC
  and IEEE LOM
• Promotion of existing metadata solutions
• Increased interoperability between schemas as a
  result of re-use across applications
• Encouragement of harmonisation between
  competing standards

11
JISC Metadata Schema Registry Phase 1

• Deliverables 2004 2005
• Full set of documentation to support development
  of MSR tools including
• usage scenarios
• functional requirements
• data models
• DC application profile
• IEEE LOM application profile
•  

12
JISC Metadata Schema Registry Phase 1

• Demonstrators
• Registry Web site allows users to browse and
  query existing data from the registry server
• Registry data server provides a persistent store
  for data about metadata terms and their use
• Data creation tool which enables users to create
  descriptions of their metadata vocabularies and
  application profiles which can be submitted to
  the registry server
• A small set of DC and IEEE LOM data created for
  indexing by the registry server
• Workshop was held in March to evaluate tools and
  provide feedback on requirements
• Evaluation report on the basis of the
  deliverables and a workshop

Note. Tools not ready to launch!
13
JISC Metadata Schema Registry useful links

• Project web site
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/iemsr/
• Registry Web Site 1
• http//iemsr.ukoln.ac.uk/
• Registry Web Site 2
• http//iemsr.ukoln.ac.uk/iemsr/
• Data creation tool
• http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/projects/iemsr/wp3/client/
• Available from
• http//sourceforge.net/projects/schemas/

14
JISC Metadata Schema Registry Phase 2

• To October 2006
• Ensure the IEMSR meets user requirements
• Provide a more focused business case
• Enhance the Registry tools (i.e. the registry
  server and schema creation tools) to a standard
  whereby users can evaluate the demonstrator
  service.
• Enhance the Registry Web interface to a standard
  whereby users can evaluate the demonstrator
  service.
• Improve machine to machine interfaces to the
  Registry

15
NSDL Metadata Registry

• NSF funded, start up around now
• Registry blog
• http//eg2.ischool.washington.edu/registry/registr
  yblog/
• Complements the NSDL Metadata Repository
• To enable NSDL projects to identify, declare and
  publish metadata schemas and schemes (controlled
  vocabularies)
• Initial priority on controlled vocabularies
• Exploring use of DCMI registry software
• http//eg2.ischool.washington.edu/registry/documen
  ts/proposalDocs/

16
Australian DEST funded Registry

• DART 2005-2007 (Dataset Acquisition,
  Accessibility and Annotation e-Research
  Technology Project)
• Australian Research Information Infrastructure
  grant
• Centralized repository/registry of metadata
  schemas
• Light registry, links to XML schemas?

17
Collaboration?

• Sharing information on user requirements
• Building broader business case
• Reaching consensus on application profile data
  model
• Shared test data
• Peer review
• Joint dissemination