Educational metadata standards

The following is a (doubtless incomplete) list of educational technology specifications and standards directly relevant to the SIG's work in metadata. No attempt has been made to include all generic metadata or library specifications and standards that may also be relevant to the SIG.

Last major revision Feb 2008

IEEE LOM
The IEEE LOM website provides information about the standard. The approved version of IEEE 1484.12.1-2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata is not yet available but the IEEE LOM Final draft only differs from the approved version in details of layout and type setting. The 6 April 2004 version of the LOM XML binding – IEEE P1484.12.3/D2 Draft Standard for Extensible Markup Language Binding for Learning Object Metadata – is also available, with further information on the standard available at JISC Standards Catalogue: IEEE LOM.

Five years since it was published, the standard was due for review to iron out any wrinkles that had been reported by implementers. The sort of detail being addressed was whether the ordering of elements which given in the standard as "unspecified" should instead be specified more precisely as "unordered", and making sure that the example vCards in the Standard documentation are valid. Eric Duval, who led the work, kept a record of all the LOM v1.1 issues discussed and the decisions made during the calls; formal documentation is in preparation.

A new PAR (official document that starts projects at IEEE) for mapping LOM to the abstract Dublin Core model is being drafted in the DCMI-LTSC task force. More information is available at the Joint DCMI/IEEE LTSC Taskforce site. In January 2008, there was a release of a Harmonization of metadata standards paper, analysing a number of metadata standards, including IEEE LOM.

Dublin Core
JISC Standards Catalogue: Dublin Core contains information about Dublin Core. The DCMI Education Working Group develops Dublin Core terms to describe educational resources.

In summer 2006, the Dublin Core Abstract Model (DCAM) recommendation was updated. Presentations about the model, and a concrete example of how it has been applied as the Scholarly Works Application Profile are available from the April 2007 SIG meeting. Their approach is to glean useful terms from the LOM so that these can be expressed in conformance with the DCAM and used in application profiles for the description of educational materials. They are not aiming to produce a complete application profile along the lines of SWAP, but rather a 'partial profile' or profile module that can be used along with other DC terms to create a complete description of a resource. The wiki for this work is open, and it was discussed on the DC-Ed mail list in August. This approach has something to recommend: it allows education metadata specialists to focus in on the questions around how best to describe the educationally relevant properties of resources; other people are looking at metadata for other domains (e.g., accessibility, preservation, properties specific to certain media types such as images and so on).

In Janaury 2008, a major maintenance update of DCMI Metadata Terms and the related RDF schemas has been released with improved definitions and usage comments, differentiation between Syntax Encoding Schemes and Vocabulary Encoding Schemes, and the specification of formal domains and ranges for properties. [http://dublincore.org/documents/2008/01/14/dc-rdf/

'Expressing Dublin Core metadata using the Resource Description Framework (RDF)'] has also been published as a DCMI Recommendation, replacing two legacy documents: 'Expressing Simple Dublin Core in RDF/XML' and 'Expressing Qualified Dublin Core in RDF/XML'.

IMS LRM
For v1.3 of the IMS Learning Resource Meta-data (LRM) specification: To these, IMS have added a Best Practice Guide for IEEE 1484.12.1-2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata and an XSL transform that may be used to convert metadata instances from IMS LRM v1.2.1 XML bindings to the IEEE LOM XML binding. Older versions of the IMS LRM specification (based on previous drafts of the IEEE LOM) are also available from the IMS Learning Resource Meta-data Specification website. http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/ims-lrm|max=3|short
 * The Information Model is provided by IEEE 1484.12.1 Standard for Learning Object Metadata
 * It is the intention that XML binding be provided by IEEE 1484.12.3 Standard for Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema Definition Language Binding for Learning Object Metadata when it is finalised.

UK LOM Core
The UK LOM Core is a profile of the LOM that makes recommendations for how the LOM should be used in UK educational contexts. The UK LOM Core page includes links to the draft UK LOM Core and several application profiles based on it. Further information is available at JISC Standards Catalogue: UK LOM Core. http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/uklomcore|max=3|short

SCORM
The Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) from ADL includes profiles of the LOM for instructional resources of different levels of aggregation at Advanced Distributed Learning - Downloads. http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/scorm|max=3|short

CanCore
The Canadian Core Learning Object Metadata Application Profile includes the most thorough element-by-element usage guidelines available, as well as highlighting those elements which are considered to be particularly useful for Canadian metadata. The profile is available at CanCore: Documents and Presentations, with additional information at JISC Standards Catalogue: CanCore. http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/cancore|max=3|short

IMS LRM
The IMS Meta-data Best Practice Guide for IEEE 1484.12.1-2002 Standard for Learning Object Metadata, v1.3 is available, alongside earlier versions of the IMS LRM Best Practice and Implementation Guide (based on an earlier drafts of the LOM), which remain useful for those parts of the LOM that did not change for the final standard. Find them at the IMS Learning Resource Meta-data Specification website. http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/ims-lrm|max=3|short

BS8419
A code of practice for interoperability between metadata systems used for learning, education and training is a draft two-part British Standard covering the creation of application profiles and methodologies for achieving interoperability between application profiles. The draft is available for comment (at nominal cost) from [mailto:david.keech@bsi-global.com David Keech]. http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/BS8419|max=3|short

LTSO metadata overview
Learning Technology Standards Observatory (LTSO): information on metadata standards, the activities of the organisations producing them and their relationships to other standards from the EU-funded LTSO project. Includes information on LOM, ARIADNE, IMS, ADL, Dublin Core, GEM and EdNA metadata. Learning Technology Standards Observatory http://del.icio.us/rss/tag/LTSO|max=3|short