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| IMRC - E-Learning Metadata Sub-group: Metadata Usage Report - Executive summary |
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Prepared by
Suzanne Skublics and Linda Stilborne
Online-Learning.com
For
The E-learning Sub-group, GOL Metadata Working Group
February 12, 2003
Summary of the Report
Background and Objective
Copyright Restrictions and Distribution
In the Fall of 2001, as part of the Government of Canada's Government
On-Line Metadata Working Group (GOL MWG), informal discussions took place
between the Department of National Defence (DND), Industry Canada (IC), the
Department of Canadian Heritage (PCH) and the Treasury Board Secretariat
(TBS) on the need for a common approach to e-learning metadata across the
Government of Canada. Based on the results of these informal meetings,
the GOL MWG established the E-learning Sub-group to study e-learning
metadata and provide advice on future directions.
The purpose of this document is to provide the E-Learning Sub-group with
a detailed assessment of the qualities, distinguishing features and
implementation issues of the key e-learning metadata standards and
application profiles. This assessment also includes a high-level
analysis of where these standards and application profiles are commonly in
use, for example, within other governmental, national and international
environments. This document contains recommendations specific to the
Government of Canada.
For more information on the Government On-Line Metadata Working Group,
its E-Learning Sub-group, and their activities, please consult the following
URLs:
Background on the GOLMWG - http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/im-gi/mwg-gtm/intro_e.asp
Background on the E-Learning Sub-group - http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/im-gi/mwg-gtm/ems-sml/intro_e.asp
The intellectual property generated by this report belongs to Online-Learning.com.
The Crown however has a licence to distribute, use, alter and build on the
documents in every possible way. Specifically, the departments,
agencies, institutions and corporations of the Government of Canada have the
right to use, make, copy, translate, modify, practice, produce, publish, or
further develop the report for any government purposes, except commercial
sale or licensing in competition with Online-Learning.com.
Permission of Online-Learning.com must be received prior to any
distribution of this report outside of the Government of Canada as described
above. For more information on obtaining this permission, please
contact Suzanne Skublics at sskublics@online-learning.com.
This report is a scan of e-Learning metadata standards and related
activities. The report covers the following areas of research:
The report includes a discussion of the two major metadata standards
being used in the e-Learning realm and selected application profiles: the
Dublin Core (DC) and IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standards.
Both of these standards form the basis for a range of application profiles.
The application profiles are derived from the standards, and provide
variations by defining additional elements or selecting and defining a
specific sub-set of elements.
Although Dublin Core has not specifically been developed for e-Learning
content, it is used in a wide range of education contexts for resource
discovery and it has sometimes been augmented with education specific
elements. Where and how DC has been modified to increase its relevance
for learning content provides a useful perspective for GOL e-Learning
metadata implementation.
IEEE LOM is a much more complex standard that has been developed
specifically for describing learning objects and capturing pedagogical
considerations. It has been developed in alignment with the IMS Global
Learning Consortium's Learning Resource Metadata Specification (commonly
refer to simply as IMS specification). Because this is a complex
standard, application profiles, such as Canada's CanCore, have been
developed to facilitate its implementation. CanCore's core element set is a
subset of IMS, which greatly simplifies its implementation and in doing so
encourages broader compliance with the LOM/IMS standard.
This study looks at the advantages and disadvantages of the two major
standards and at the contexts in which their respective application profiles
are being developed and successfully adopted for tagging learning content.
For each of the standards, a detailed case study is provided.
The selection of an e-Learning metadata standard for the Government of
Canada (GOC) should be based on a careful analysis of implementation costs
and benefits. The overall cost of designating metadata tags for
learning content must be weighed against the end-value. With this in
mind, it is essential to determine the context in which GOC learning content
is to be used. Essentially metadata is used for resource discovery and/or
for learning object management and exchange.
The Dublin Core standard is an effective standard for resource
discovery. Many of the education contexts in which it is used involve
the need for resource discovery by a broad audience of education
professionals. DC implementation is often streamlined by virtue of its
"ease of use". Where DC is being used, content developers
and providers are frequently also the content "metadata taggers".
(This is the case, for example, with GEM, a major U.S. Department of
Education content gateway which is based on Dublin Core and which is based
on content provided by hundreds of independent content
contributors.) A number of DC application profiles and
implementation examples have been supplemented at the local level by the
addition of education specific elements. Although DC does not describe
learning objects from a technical and pedagogical perspective, its
application in an educational context has been enhanced somewhat by the
recommendations for additional elements put forward by the DC Education
Group. These recommendations as well as the advantages and disadvantages of
DC for describing learning content are discussed in this report.
The IEEE LOM standard (and its twin, the IMS specification) is a more
complete standard for handling learning objects. The CanCore subset
and recommendations for best practices offer a practical formula for LOM/IMS
implementation. Because CanCore has been widely adopted by Canadian
organizations, CanCore has also paved the way for the practical exchange of
learning objects among Canadian universities, colleges and other agencies
dealing with the development of learning content. While less complex than
the full IEEE LOM standard, the CanCore application profile includes general
descriptive elements for resource discovery as well as selected elements
related to basic technical implementation, education application, rights
management, relationship to other learning content, and classification based
on a specific taxonomy. IEEE LOM is a more robust standard than Dublin
Core, but its suitability for use in a particular context depends very much
on the anticipated use that will be made of a given learning object
repository. In general, IEEE LOM and its variations (SCORM/CanCore)
are most appropriate as a standard where learning content is designed for
use in a formal training program (vs. incidental content that may or may not
be used specifically for learning). Although there are few examples
that identify specific costs for LOM implementation, the scope and
complexity of LOM indicate that its implementation is certain to be
expensive (in comparison to DC). The additional costs of implementing
LOM (or CanCore) must be weighed against the degree to which additional
elements related to object sharing, technical implementation and pedagogical
information would be used. The IEEE LOM, its related application profiles,
and a case example are discussed in this report.
Activity related to the implementation of e-Learning standards is
extensive. There are national guidelines, collaborative groups,
implementation projects, research agencies, learning object repositories and
education gateways. All of these have an impact on the development and
continuous evolution of e-Learning standards. Although it has not been
possible in the time frame available for developing this report to
investigate all areas of standard usage and related implementation issues,
the report does provide a sampling of usage data. Agencies that are
using a specific standard are identified as part of the discussion of each
standard. In addition, short summaries have been developed for
selected projects to give a closer look at the mix of activity and types of
agencies active in the area of e-Learning standards. The data provided with
respect to usage is international in scope. Canadian implementation
examples are mostly related to CanCore, which accounts for much of the
Canadian activity in the area of learning standards. The usage information
provided in the report includes links for further research and contact
information where this was available.
- We recommend the use of IEEE LOM/IMS V1.2.1 following the CanCore
application profile for describing learning objects. Most specifications and
application profiles are aligning themselves with IEEE LOM: IMS, SCORM,
CanCore, ARIADNE, so choosing IEEE LOM will allow the GOC metatagged
learning content to be compatible with all of them. The advantage of CanCore
is their useful and helpful guidelines and documentation as well as their
applicability to Canadian resources.
- Once a metadata standard is selected, it will be necessary to establish a
common practice with respect to which fields should be filled at a minimum.
The GOL Metadata Working Group, E-learning Sub-group, will need to determine
which elements should be mandatory for GOC learning objects. Designating an
e-Learning metadata element as mandatory should be based on the
likelihood of that element serving a practical purpose for learning content
exchange among GOC agencies. Individual departments can provide more
comprehensive metadata tagging based on departmental needs and agreements
with external agencies with which they are most likely to be exchanging
content. A reasonable starting point for selecting GOC common elements would
be either the SCORM mandatory set or the CanCore element set.
- Dublin Core can, and likely will, still be used to describe objects
(assets) such as images, video, and audio as well as content primarily
intended for resource discovery by the general public. Because GOL
guidelines related to the use of Dublin Core (TBITS 39.1) do not preclude
the use of DC elements beyond the five mandatory elements, departments may
choose to adopt the DCEducation elements for some kinds of learning content.
This should not be a problem since Dublin Core is an appropriate standard in
any context where resource discovery is the primary goal.
- Clear guidelines for GOC e-Learning metadata implementation should be
developed. These guidelines should be aligned with Canadian and
international best practices. To ensure quality and consistency it may be
necessary to centralize some aspects of e-Learning metadata implementation.
- Be aware that not all search engines will be able to use the metadata
element set that you choose. None of the public search engines search
metadata content, although some use metadata information for relevance
ranking. Government of Canada departmental search engines are being
configured to search Dublin Core metadata fields. The GOL Metadata Working
Group, E-learning Sub-group, should determine what tool(s) will be put in
place for locating learning objects. Metadata elements should be transparent
to those searching for content.
- The GOL Metadata Working Group, E-learning Sub-group, should specify
which vocabularies should be used with specific e-Learning elements. CanCore
specifies that, "elements that are subject to the vocabulary datatype
should reference publicly sourced and maintained vocabularies."
Although the issue of mapping between different vocabularies is best
addressed at an international level, the E-learning Sub-group should track
developments in this area and adopt policies in conformance with work in
this area as it goes forward. CEN-ISSS (Information Society Standardization
System) is a central resource for taxonomy and thesauruses development and
for linguistic interoperability.
- The GOL Metadata Working Group, E-learning Sub-group, should create a
mapping from IEEE LOM (IMS) to DC to be able to transform metadata, as
needed.
- GOL Metadata Working Group, E-learning Sub-group, should create a mapping
from DC to IEEE LOM (IMS) to be able to transform metadata, as needed.
- The GOL Metadata Working Group, E-learning Sub-group, should follow the
work done by the CETIS Metadata Special Interest Group and request to
be on the CETIS Metadata listserv. The GOL Metadata Working Group,
E-learning Sub-group, should also follow case study research currently being
done by CETIS Metadata SIG Coordinating Partner Phil Barker.[1]
- The GOL Metadata Working Group, E-learning Sub-group, should continue to
monitor metadata activities, especially work being done by IMS, SCORM and
CanCore.
The following passage is from a presentation given by Stephen Downes.[2] It captures a number of points
that should be considered with respect to vocabulary and other aspects of
metadata implementation.
Language (and therefore metadata) has three dimensions (Charles Morris)
- Syntax - sentence structure and grammar
- Semantics - reference and representation
- Pragmatics - context of use
We can conclude this:
We say different things about an object depending on our different
relations (e.g., Contexts of use) of an object
And thus:
The more we restrict what we can say about an object, the more the
meanings of the terms we do use will vary according to context.
The lesson is this:
- If we attempt to restrict the vocabulary used to describe learning
objects, then because of pragmatics we are almost guaranteeing that the
words in our vocabulary will lose their fixed meaning.
- This will make it impossible for machines - as well as humans - to
understand what is being said.
- Objects are best described using multiple vocabularies.
- There is no way to determine which vocabulary will be relevant to either
an author or a user of a given objects.
- Trying to stipulate a canonical vocabulary a priori needlessly reduces
the effectiveness of a system of communication.
Footnotes
[1] CETIS:
http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
CETIS Metadata SIG: http://metadata.cetis.ac.uk/
Phil Barker: ICBL, Dept of Computing and Electrical Engineering Heriot-Watt
University phone: 0131 451 3278 email: philb@icbl.hw.ac.uk
[2] Stephen Downes,
NRC presentation "One Standard for all", Jan 2003
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