Re: Metadata

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Subject: Re: Metadata
From: Albert Ip (albert@dls.au.com)
Date: Fri 25 Feb 2000 - 10:40:57 MET 

From: "Albert Ip" <albert@dls.au.com>
Subject: Re: Metadata
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 20:40:57 +1100

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On Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:07:50 -0800 Clark Quinn Wrote
>>One of the issues that I see with metadata is the same problem
>>that occurs in library catalogue systems. In order to make
>>searches meaningful, we need standard metadata categories and
>>values. As soon as we set a standard, some will find it difficult to
>>work with because it does not match the terminology that they are
>>used to working with.
>
>Agreed. It's the fine tension between making the most useful and most
flexible system. People have been working hard on it, and I'm making one
proposal that combines a suggestion for granularity and tagging that seems
minimally intrusive and maximally flexible.

I like to see your proposal.
Albert

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This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Fri 25 Feb 2000 - 11:57:38 MET itself has been tagged) potentially allows
breaking the document into sub parts and may allow re-use of sub parts). I
refer to this as document instead of resource because resource may not been
document (e.g. a resouce may be a picture) and current tagging technology
does not apply.

"It requires metadata tagging to be a fully realized object." - this is
neither the necessary condition, nor the "sufficient condition". I can
design a system to use a resource without requiring the resource to be
tagged (both metadata tagging or XML tagging). Equally, I can tag any
object and it does not automatically make the object a fully realized
object.

Metadata tagging supports resource discovery. How rich you want to go so
that the tagging also describes things like activation parameters, variables
settings, typical use... ? How complicated the software will be to take
advantage of all these "rich tagging"?

If your version of metadata tagging supports "some annotation about author,
time period, style" and "audio overlay" that accompany a chart to explain
it's context, I think your metadata tags are too rich to be useful. In fact
such content of the tag is better separately stored as a resource. In this
case this separated stored resource is an "learning asset". If I can find
this learning asset, I can know ONE example of using the resource referred
to by this learnign asset. Hence the learning asset becomes an enabling
device for using resouces that are not originally created for education
consumption. (This is a long phrase, can I use "NEF resource"?) But still,
tagging (or metadata tagging) does not change nature of the NEF resource.
There may be other education use of the same NEF resource. I think that's
OK and is prefectly welcome!

On the other hand, the NEF resource may have metadata tags embedded in it by
its original creator, e.g. to claim copyright and promote search. The NEF
resource is still a resource. Such tagging does not transfor the NEF
resource into educationally useful resource.

>>I also noted that "content" is not necessarily "learning content" from the
>>view of creation. When used in a learning situation, all content IS
>>learning content.
>
>If there's an external context provided, I'll agree. But I don't think
that serving a string of independent knowledge objects will necessarily
yield a learning experience. Currently. That is, a system that can create
a learning experience on the fly out of tagged knowledge objects just
doesn't exist yet, nor can it unless some more breakthroughs are
accomplished in AI and cognitive science.

People do not learn in vacuum. In a role play simulation
(http://polsim.politics.unimelb.edu.au/wpt/), the simulation co-ordinator
linked a rich list of resources including BBC, CNN news service. These are
NEF resources. However, there is definite pedagogical reasons in including
them in the simulation. When used in such condition, I have not problem
saying that they are "learning content".
[just for those interested, you may have a look of the simulation by
following the link "World Politics in Transition Simulation" and log in
using username "guest" and password: "demonstration" and there is a resource
link on the left frame after log in.]

>>The issue is how to create "learning content" or use
>>content meaningfully in a learning context. I don't think we should avoid
>>"jumping the loop" by saying that once a content was used in a learning
>>context, the content becomes a learning object. I was trying to terse out
>>the "qualities" or necessary "sub-components" of any learning object.
>>
>>The current list is "content, functionality, learning objectives and 'look
>>and feel' " Please add to this list and debate!
>
>OK. Given the above, I'd argue that content, functionality, and 'look and
feel' are properties of objects, period. Knowledge or learning. The need
for a learning objective (implicit is acceptable) is what's needed to make
it a learning object.

Is it that simple? Just learning objective?

Let me just quote a paragraph of a paper which my colleagues and I are
preparing:

"At the inaugural meeting of the DC-Education Working Group in October 1999,
the first domain-specific Working Group to be constituted within the Dublin
Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), five categories based on the common
semantic elements of eleven major educational metadata projects, were
identified. These included::

- USERS: Metadata elements that focus on the general idea of the "audience"
for the resource being described, further distinguished as those "who
mediate access to the resource" from those "for whose benefit from how it
may be used".
- DURATION: Metadata elements/qualifiers that capture the typical "use" time
of an educational/training resource.
- LEARNING PROCESSES & CHARACTERISTICS: Contains a number of different
attributes that focus on pedagogy including "student groupings, teaching
methods, mechanisms of assessment, learning prerequisites, interactivity
type and level, material type from a didactic viewpoint, type of use in a
scholastic milieu, 'difficulty', 'semantic density,' etc.
- STANDARDS: Mapping to meet specific education/training content/process
standards
- QUALITY: Relates to an assessment of the quality of the object for
educational/training purposes. Sutton identified two sorts of such
assessments: (1) unstructured assessments (e.g., third-party
reviews/annotations), and (2) structured assessments based on established
evaluative criteria.
[Sutton, S email to DC-education mailing list, Nov 21, 1999]"

cheers
Albert

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