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Quality Assurance Handbook:Part 5: Quality Assurance For Metadata
This handbook provides advice and support for projects funded by JISCs digital library programmes. The handbook provides advice for projects in their choice of standards, best practices and implementation architectures. The handbook provides a quality assurance methodology which will help to ensure that projects funded by JISCs digital library programmes are interoperable and widely accessible.
This handbook addresses the issue of metadata.
Authors QA Focus team at UKOLN and AHDS
Publication date: 16 August 2004
Version: 1.0
Table Of Contents
TOC \h \z \t "Heading 1,1,Heading 2,2,Briefing-Title,2,Case-Study-Title,2" HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499625" 1 Introduction PAGEREF _Toc80499625 \h 1
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499626" Background PAGEREF _Toc80499626 \h 1
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499627" About QA Focus PAGEREF _Toc80499627 \h 1
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499628" Scope Of QA Focus PAGEREF _Toc80499628 \h 1
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499629" The QA Focus Team PAGEREF _Toc80499629 \h 2
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499630" 2 About This Handbook PAGEREF _Toc80499630 \h 3
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499631" 3 Briefing Papers On Metadata PAGEREF _Toc80499631 \h 4
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499632" An Introduction To Metadata PAGEREF _Toc80499632 \h 5
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499633" Metadata Deployment PAGEREF _Toc80499633 \h 7
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499634" Quality Assurance For Metadata PAGEREF _Toc80499634 \h 9
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499635" Choosing A Metadata Standard For Resource Discovery PAGEREF _Toc80499635 \h 11
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499636" Metadata And Subject Searching PAGEREF _Toc80499636 \h 14
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499637" IMS Question And Test Interoperability PAGEREF _Toc80499637 \h 17
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499638" Metadata Harvesting PAGEREF _Toc80499638 \h 20
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499639" Quality Assurance in the Construction of a TEI Header PAGEREF _Toc80499639 \h 23
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499640" 4 Case Studies On Metadata PAGEREF _Toc80499640 \h 25
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499641" Managing And Using Metadata In An E-Journal PAGEREF _Toc80499641 \h 26
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499642" Gathering The Jewels: Creating A Dublin Core Metadata Strategy PAGEREF _Toc80499642 \h 29
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499643" The Development of Metadata for the Census Resource Discovery System PAGEREF _Toc80499643 \h 32
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499644" Approaches To 'Spring Cleaning' At SOSIG PAGEREF _Toc80499644 \h 36
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499645" 5 Metadata Toolkit PAGEREF _Toc80499645 \h 40
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499646" Metadata Toolkit PAGEREF _Toc80499646 \h 40
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499647" 6 Further Information PAGEREF _Toc80499647 \h 42
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499648" CETIS PAGEREF _Toc80499648 \h 42
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499649" UKOLN PAGEREF _Toc80499649 \h 42
HYPERLINK \l "_Toc80499650" Acknowledgements PAGEREF _Toc80499650 \h 43
1 Introduction
Background
Welcome to QA Focuss Quality Assurance For Metadata Handbook. This handbook has been published by the JISC-funded QA Focus project. The handbook provides advice on compliance with the standards and best practices in the area of metadata.
About QA Focus
QA Focus has funded by the JISC to help develop quality assurance methodology which projects funded by JISCs digital library programmes should seek to implement in order to ensure that project deliverables comply with appropriate standards and best practices which. This will help to ensure that project deliverables and widely accessible and interoperable and to facilitate the deployment of deliverables into a service environment.
The approach taken by QA Focus has been developmental: rather than seeking to impose requirements on projects, which are being undertaken by many institutions across the country, with differing backgrounds and levels of funding and resources, we have sought to raise an awareness of JISCs commitment to use of open standards, to describe various technical frameworks which can help in deploying open standards and to outline ways of ensuring that selected standards and used in a compliance fashion.
We do, however, recognise the difficulties which projects may experience in implementing open standards (such as, for example, the immaturity of standards or the poor support for standards by tool vendors; the resource implications in implementing some of the standards; etc.). We have sought to address such concerns by developing a matrix framework to assist in the selection of standards which are appropriate for use by standards, in the light of available funding, available expertise, maturity of standard, etc.
We hope that the wide range of advice provided in this handbook will be valuable to projects. However the most important aspect of this handbook is the quality assurance QA) methodology which is outlined in the handbook. The QA methodology has been developed with an awareness of the constraints faced by projects. We have sought to develop a light-weight QA methodology which can be easily implemented and which should provide immediate benefits to projects during the development of their deliverables as well as ensuring interoperability and ease of deployment into service which will help to ensure the maximum effectiveness of JISCs overall digital library development work.
Scope Of QA Focus
QA Focus seeks to ensure technical interoperability and maximum accessibility of project deliverables. QA Focus therefore has a focus on the technical aspects of projects work.
Our remit covers the following technical aspects:
Digitisation: The digitisation of resources, including text, image, moving image and sound resources.
Access: Access to resources, with particular references to access using the Web.
Metadata: The use of metadata, such as resource discovery metadata.
Software development: The development and deployment of software applications.
Service deployment: Deployment of project deliverables into a service environment.
In addition to these core technical areas we also address:
Standards: The selection and deployment of standards for use by projects.
Quality assurance: The development of quality assurance procedures by projects.
QA Focuss was originally funded to support JISCs 5/99 programme. However during 2003 our remit was extended to support JISCs FAIR and X4L in addition to 5/99.
The QA Focus Team
QA Focus began its work on 1 January 2002. Initially the service was provided by UKOLN and ILRT, University of Bristol. However, following ILRTs decision to re-focus on their core activities they left QA Focus and were replaced by the AHDS on 1 January 2003.
This handbook has been developed by the current QA Focus team members: Brian Kelly, UKOLN (QA Focus project leader), Amanda Closier (QA Focus officer), Marieke Guy, UKOLN (former QA Focus officer), Hamish James, AHDS (QA Focus project leader at AHDS) and Gareth Knight (QA Focus officer).
2 About This Handbook
This handbook provides advice on best practices for use of metadata.
The handbook forms part of a series of Quality Assurance handbooks, which cover the areas which have been addressed by QA Focus work:
Part 1: About Quality assurance: The development of quality assurance procedures by projects.
Part 2: Quality Assurance For Standards: The selection and deployment of standards for use by projects.
Part 3: Quality Assurance For Digitisation: The digitisation of resources, including text, image, moving image and sound resources.
Part 4: Quality Assurance For Web/Access: Access to resources, especially access using the Web.
Part 5: Quality Assurance For Metadata: The use of metadata, such as resource discovery metadata.
Part 6: Quality Assurance For Software: Development and deployment of software applications.
Part 7: Quality Assurance For Service Deployment: Deployment of project deliverables into a service environment.
Part 8: Quality Assurance For Other Areas: Quality assurance in areas not covered elsewhere.
The handbook consists of three main sections:
Briefing Documents: Brief, focussed advice on best practices.
Case studies: Descriptions of the approaches taken by projects to the deployment of best practices.
Toolkit: Self-assessment checklists which can help ensure that projects have addressed the key areas.
3 Briefing Papers On Metadata
Background
This section addresses the area of metadata.
Briefing Documents
The following briefing documents which address the area of metadata have been produced:
An Introduction To Metadata (briefing-41)
Metadata Deployment (briefing-42)
Quality Assurance For Metadata (briefing 43)
Choosing A Metadata Standard (briefing-63)
Metadata And Subject Searching (briefing-64)
IMS Question And Test Interoperability (briefing-36)
Metadata Harvesting (briefing 44)
Quality Assurance in the Construction of a TEI Header (briefing 69)
An Introduction To Metadata
About This Document
This briefing document gives an executive overview of the role of metadata.
Citation Details
An Introduction To Metadata, QA Focus, UKOLN,
Keywords: metadata, briefing
What is Metadata?
Metadata is often described as data about data. The concept of metadata is not new a Library catalogue contains metadata about the books held in the Library. What is new is the potential that metadata provides in developing rich digital library services.
The term metadata has come to mean structured information that is used by automated processes. This is probably the most useful way to think about metadata [1].
The Classic Metadata Example
The classic example of metadata is the library catalogue. A catalogue record normally contains information about a book (title, format, ISBN, author, etc.). Such information is stored in a structured, standardised form, often using an international standard known as MARC. Use of this international standard allows catalogue records to be shared across organisations.
Why is Metadata So Important?
Although metadata is nothing new, the importance of metadata has grown with the development of the World Wide Web. As is well-known the Web seeks to provide universal access to distributed resources. In order to develop richly functional Web applications which can exploit the Webs global information environment it is becoming increasingly necessary to make use of metadata which describes the resources in some formal standardised manner.
Metadata Standards
In order to allow metadata to be processed in a consistent manner by computer software it is necessary for metadata to be described in a standard way. There are many metadata standards available. However in the Web environment the best known standard is the Dublin Core standard which provides an agreed set of core metadata elements for use in resource discovery.
The Dublin Core standard (formally known as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set) has defined 15 core elements: Title, Creator, Subject, Description, Contributor, Date, Type, Format, Identifier, Source, Language, Relation, Coverage and Rights [2].
The core element set is clearly very basic. A mechanism for extending Dublin Core elements has been developed. This allows what is known as Qualified Dublin Core elements to refine the core elements. For example DC.Date.Created refines the DC.Date element by allowing the date of creation of the resource to be described. DC.Date.Modified can be used to describe the date on which the resource was changed. Without the qualifiers, it would not be possible to tell which date related to which event. Work is in progress in defining a common set of qualifiers.
Using Metadata
The Dublin Core standard defines a set of core elements. The standard does not specify how these elements should be deployed on the Web. Initially consideration was given to using Dublin Core by embedding it within HTML pages using the element e.g. <