Category Archives: cetis-content

Images Application Profile Project Meeting

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London, October 2007

Following introductions the meeting began with a presentation by Pete J and Julie on the Dublin Core Abstract Model and the Scholarly works Application Profile.

DCMI Abstract Model and Application Profiles
– Pete Johnston, Eduserv Foundation

The Dublin Core element set published in 1995.

A resource is anything that can be identified by a URI. Resources have property value pairs associated with them

DCAM defines the DC description set and is composed of

  • Resource model
  • Description set model
  • Vocabulary model

DCAM does not describe how to represent description sets in concrete terms and doesn not specify a fixed set of terms.

Descriptions sets are composed or one of more descriptions which may have a resource URI. Each description is composed of one or more statements. Each statement must have a property URI and literal or non literal value surrogates.

The DCMI Description Set Profile is a way of describing structural constraints on a description set “ this is not part of DCAM. Mikael Nilssen is developing a model and XML syntax for DSP and Fredrik Enoksson is developing wiki syntax for DSP.

A DCAM compatible application profile consists of

  • Functional requirements
  • Domain model
  • Description Set Profile
  • Two other components

Methodology for Images Application Profile
– Mick Eadie, AHDS Visual Arts

Have looked at a range of existing application profiles including SWAP and Jorum and have drafted attributes, a model, usecases and functional requirements which are available form the project wiki.

The primary objective of the project is to develop a working application profile along the lines of SWAP (this was prioritised by members of the panel) and the team intend to follow the SWAP development model.

Getting the profile implemented and used will be the most challenging aspect of the project. The project team hope to engage with repository vendors and developers asap and are meeting with the ePrints team to discuss their potential involvement. (ePrints (Tim Brody) and Fedora (Richard Green, Chris Awre) people are represented on the panel.)

Models the project will look at in more detail

May be beneficial for JISC to fund some kind of synthesis or over arching project that could map the relationship between the various application profile creation projects.

Breakout Session

  • Need to be careful if you state you want rich metadata “ why do you want it?
  • Users need to be able to find images about or of a particular thing., the content of the image is crucial
  • Is this about metadata exchange or resource discovery? Its about exchange to support resource discovery.
  • The images and time based media profile projects must work together.
  • The context of use is crucial so provenance needs to be recorded.
  • The national repositories section of the usecases document really refers to aggregator services.
  • Will the profile accommodate 3d models that can be manipulated e.g. molecular models?
  • The draft model scoped by the project is too simple and needs revision.
  • The concept of the master image is problematic and ambiguous. The underlying model must be as neutral as possible and should be based on relationships. œMaster should be regarded as a class of relationship rather than a class of artefact.
  • Many images are composite objects so the whole – part relationship needs to be considered.
  • FRBR is designed with textual resources in mind so the model may not fit visual images. In FRBR the work is always an abstract thing. In the case of images there may be no work e.g. in the case of a photograph of a giraffe, the giraffe can not be considered as œwork

Feedback

  • In order to describe images relationships are key. The profile must make provision for be bi-directional relationships and relationships to identifiers elsewhere.
  • User generated tags can be accommodated by the œhas annotation field.
  • The simplest approach may be to identify metadata that is about the image and its creation and metadata that is about the content of the image. These two will overlap and the relationship between them is crucial. (Grant Young, TASI)
  • Dimensionality of images is very important. Images have other dimensions than x and y.
  • The model should stop short of describing the work.
  • Colour space, coverage and encoding (i.e. what does a pixel encode – colour, temperature, etc) should be included as attributes.
  • The relationship between images and time based media needs to be clarified
  • œWhy not just define a core element set that could have extensions built on to it (!!)

Community Acceptance

  • The team will start drafting an Ariadne article as it was generally agreed that this was highly beneficial to the SWAP project.
  • Project should consider presenting at Open Repositories Conference in Southampton in April 2008 as the SWAP profile was presented at the 2007 conference.
  • Project needs to work very closely with Intute and the time based media application profile project. It will also be important to work with the cultural heritage sector.
  • Acceptance should be at an international level.
  • Acceptance takes a long time as software is developed in long cycles.
  • Need an exemplar that demonstrates key benefits to the community.
  • Need to be aware that many people are simply storing their images in Flickr. This is the world the profile must work in.
  • Need to demonstrate advantages from depositor and repository point of view.

A few thoughts¦

Julie and co have made the creation of SWAP look awfully easy :-}

It was notable, and a little worrying, that that there was very little discussion of tagging (raised once by Pete), use of sites like Flickr (raised once by me) or Web 2.0 technologies and approaches in general. However there was significant discussion of semantic web technologies and approaches.

It also became clear that its debatable how far the FRBR model can be stretched before it breaks. FRBR worked well for SWAP, but will it work equally well for images, learning materials etc?

It was also painfully clear that metadata creation is still a serious problem and that it is not always easy to distinguish between issues that relate to a profile and issues that relate to implementations of that profile.

As Father Jack would say œThat would be an implementation issue¦.

Semantic technologies for teaching and learning?

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As part of this years forthcoming JISC CETIS conference Phil and I are proposing to run a half day “brainstorm session on semantic technologies and their use, or not, in the teaching and learning space. I should add that I know very little about semantic technology developments and this is one reason Im keen for the session to go ahead. I have a persistent lurking suspicion that theres lots of really interesting work going on out there somewhere but I dont know what, I dont know where and I dont know whether its likely to be of use to teachers and learners. Im inclined to think that the answer to the last of these questions is a resounding yes.

In the course of fleshing out a brief description of the planned session I couldnt help noticing that most of the references to semantic technologies, including those turned up by Google and Wikipedia, date from 2003 and 2004. Clearly the semantic web has been supplanted by Web 2.0.

So whats been going on in the meantime? Have semantic technologies failed to deliver? Are they now restricted to interesting but niche research projects? Or have they been quietly successful to the extent that they are now so ubiquitous that we no longer notice them? RSS anyone?

I was still wondering if there were lots of really interesting educational applications of semantic teachnologies out there but a rather cursory search didnt turn up anything new. I did get very excited when I discovered the W3C Semantic Web Education and Outreach Interest Group. However I was a bit disappointed to discover that rather than reaching out to the educational community the group aims to:

œincrease awareness among the Web community of the need and benefit for the Semantic Web, and educate the Web community regarding related solutions and technologies.

Still, its a noble aim and the group does provide a lot of very interesting and relevant information.

Another interesting resources I came across on more than a few blogs is the Semantic Technology Primer. This includes a run down of those sectors implementing semantic technologies: government, financial services, manufacturing, logistics, transport and communications, energy, health and life sciences, media, and business services. No education. The Primer also includes a detailed schematic of œApplications Today, again no education.

I know that there are semantic technologies that are widely use on the domain of education such as FOAF, RSS, Atom, etc but its arguable whether they have made a significant impact in the teaching and learning space, as opposed to the enterprise and identity management end of things. Its possible that there are piles of semantic technology developers out there who would say that this is all rubbish and that these technologies are already happening. If so thats great, you can come along to the conference and tell us all about it!

Random Quotes 3: Digital Repositories – Dealing with the Digital Deluge Conference

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Sharing Digital Material for eLearning & Plenary Sessions
Manchester 5th & 6th June 2007

Get the technology right and the culture and policy will change¦were trying to be implementers of the eFramework¦ resistance to abstracting out services¦reticence to depend on other peoples services¦best holistic for implementing a standard is simplicity and an active adoption community¦users want repositories to work like websites¦problems are cultural not technological¦I assume the framework people will provide guidance on which standards to adopt¦ who cares whats lost¦it doesnt matter¦institutional boundaries are blurring¦what should institutions be facilitating¦we think of repositories as only having come along with e-learning…librarians have been grappling with these ideas for thousands of years¦cant simply institutionalise web based paradigms¦need appropriate levels of security¦opening up archives for educational use¦Britains intelligent conversation¦web based services are there, they work and the are appropriate to use¦perceptions of storage and safety were paramount and individual¦tutors are happy to provide personal metadata¦concern over loss of control and misappropriation of resources¦the vast majority of people will give you permission to use stuff for education¦repositories can save us from mish-mash and mess¦why dont learning object repositories facilitate version control¦bring management into the realm of the personal¦lack of innovation in teaching¦support departments are not necessarily supportive¦be flexible and modular about the way you build things¦deliver content to students in the way they want to learn¦the repository of the future is a very smart search¦my repository is Google¦anonymity vs pseudonymity¦student identity is less tied up with the institution¦academics have more allegiance to their subject than their institution¦fluid identity¦the authoritative voice¦whats hot in pigs¦users want it to be legal, or nearly legal¦need formalised metadata and canonical syntax and semantics¦we dont like it to be too informal¦take this forward for wealth creation and improved quality of life¦home brew systems¦DC syntax and semantics are not sufficiently formal¦there are people in the loop¦the easiest way of doing things is not always the best way¦pool them dont type them¦flexible coordinated force¦the more metadata you have the better¦creative vs legal balance¦religious, commercial, professional or labour groups¦how can we make things better?…sensitive to the needs of the community¦transient is a better word than incoherent¦IPR, DRM and all these things were not really interested in on the elearning side of things¦curators see the repository much more in isolation¦curators see single communities, users see multiple communities¦the things that floated to the surface were technical things¦

Worries about academic identity¦nothing fundamentally new about repositories¦we have to be careful about the competitive position of our universities¦whod have thought vles would have become so common¦making things more wanted¦move from model where teaching is dominated by individuals to one dominated by teams¦its all about embedding change¦the web is embedded in day to day practice¦there is change that comes at us¦were the spear head of this¦you cant embed if youre not wanted¦techies with new toys to play with foist them on others as a good thing to use¦user requirements analysis needs to be ongoing¦students are key users¦what should institutions do given the potential for mayhem?¦solve problems at a national not institutional level¦will these services become part of the landscape¦universities give the impression that they dont understand that teaching and learning is their core business¦worse still, you have to involve the senior management¦authority, integrity and quality assurance¦capitalise on complementarity¦its not a personal learning environment, its a personal information environment¦if you teach its very hard to use web 2.0 things, you dont have the time¦things embed instantly if theyre useful¦vles are a solution to a management problem¦you dont want to learn another system¦some new services are a facsimile of an existing paradigm¦what is it the university can do best¦librarians, if only there were more of them¦shift emphasis back to teaching staff¦change the working practices of senior managers¦have to know what we want to achieve and make sure the right people are there to achieve it¦stop using pseudo business models¦value is in process, not in materials…academics thought they knew what the deal was¦hesitate to use the word stagnated¦sack the lot of them¦the roadmap goes to 2010¦open access mandates are not enough¦without licensing there is no open access¦lets just do it¦OAI-ORE¦going from practice into theory¦the end is the wellbeing of the entire academic process¦the tide is with us¦we are incredibly fortunate to have the JISC¦who pays for this way into the future¦the repositories programme is a failure because wheres the content?…lets take more risks¦more responsive mode calls¦relationships of trust¦incentives to share learning materials¦global and institutional services¦metadata vs tagging¦worthy but dull…more risk taking…huge strides made variously…

Iain Wallace, Colin Milligan, Tom Franklin, Caroline Breslin, Howard Noble, David White, Anne Gamble, Keith Jeffries, Drummond Bone, John Casey, Chris Pegler, Sheila Anderson