Views sought on ISO Metadata for Learning Resources

Phil Barker — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:14:05 +0000

Work on the ISO standard Metadata for Learning Resources is reaching a critical point, with bodies such as BSI being asked to vote on whether the current draft text for part 1 (the framework) should be allowed to continue to the next stage of the ISO standardization process. The current draft is the final committee draft, approval by this ballot would indicate that those interested at this stage had reached consensus on the technical content, and the document could become a draft International Standard. There then follows a wider enquiry stage and further votes before the standard is fully ratified.

MLR is being drafted as a multi-part standard and the role of part 1, the framework, is to provide the overall principles rules, and structures for how the other parts define data elements and how they should be used. One of the objectives is that MLR should be as compatible as possible with the LOM and the Dublin Core abstract model (and therefore with RDF though specific bindings are out of scope for this part).

CETIS have passed-on comments about previous drafts to the ISO committee through various channels. The most important channel for us for this draft is BSI, who get a vote in the ballot, and they are looking for comments by the end of February. We would like to put together an agreed position on behalf of those involved in UK F&HE , if you are interested in contributing to this please get in touch (email philb@icbl.hw.ac.uk) and I will pass on the details (update: there is a copy of the draft text on the ISOTC website). We are of course interested in views from outwith UK F&HE, but there might more appropriate routes for you to provide your feedback to BSI or your own national body.

Liddy Nevile is also asking for help in submitting comments from the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative. I would encourage people to help her with that.

Update: thanks to Erlend Øverby and Andy Heath, for showing me where a copy of this draft can be found.

Update 2: There has been some discussion on the CETIS-Metadata email list about this. Please consider joining in.

ISO Metadata for Learning Resources

Phil Barker — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:32:39 +0000

As I write there is a meeting near Paris where the future direction of the proposed ISO Standard on Metadata for Learning Resources is being discussed. CETIS were asked to contribute to this meeting, and Lorna and I have done so through a position statement circulated to the delegates. In this post I’ll give some background to that position paper and to ISO MLR itself.

First a potted history. Some time back, around 2002/3 the IEEE LOM was put up for standardization by ISO (well, ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 if you want to be precise). It was decided that the LOM was not suitable for adoption as an ISO standard as it stood, and so a working group started to investigate the issues and propose remedies. The outcome was outlined by Norm Friesen in January 2006 in his CanCore article Building a Better LOM. Since then development has continued at what Mikael Nilsson has called “quite a distance from the community“, resulting in drafts for a multi-part standard. Part one of the standard, the Framework, sets out the principles, rules, structures etc. on which MLR is based and as such is fundamental to the standard. The drafts of this Framework, the most recent of which is CD3 have been criticized on several fronts for being over long, over complicated, and for adopting a structure-orientated XML approach rather than one which is explicitly semantics. See, for example, this from Tore Hoel, and this by various authors from DCMI (which, while it’s a comment on part 2 of the proposed standard, relates to issues pertaining to part 1).

The meeting taking place is a ballot resolution meeting to address the many negative comments registered against CD 3. There exists a proposed route for re-directing the MLR work, outlined here and here and here. Some of the authors of this approach have asked for CETIS’s support. As our position statement describes, for various reasons we are able to offer little beyond moral support, and with some caveats (not so much about the approach per se more to do with the context in which it is being pursued).

Phil Barker » ISOMLR

Views sought on ISO Metadata for Learning Resources

ISO Metadata for Learning Resources