A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

The MEG Metadata Schemas Registry

Pete Johnston, Research Officer (Interoperability), UKOLN, University of Bath

p.johnston@ukoln.ac.uk

UKOLN Staff Seminar

Bath, 25 June, 2003

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

The MEG Registry

• Metadata schemas registries

• MEG & the MEG registry

• The MEG registry data model

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

Metadata Schemas Registries

• What is a metadata schemas registry? – Application that provides access to information

on metadata vocabularies, their components, and related resources

• What is a metadata schemas registry for?– Disclosure/discovery/selection– Navigation of relationships– For various purposes….

• "publication", convergence, tool support….

• For human readers & software agents

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

Metadata for Education Group (MEG)

• Facilitated by Interoperability Focus• Forum for discussing provision of

educational resources at all levels across UK

• Encourage consistency of approaches to description

• Use of DESIRE registry, 2000-2002• Disclosure, implementation/localisation,

"convergence"

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

MEG Registry Project

• Funded by JISC/BECTa, 2002• Re-engineering of DESIRE registry as RDF

application• Shaped by work in SCHEMAS project• Some refinement of data model• Uses RDFS, but not (currently) OWL• Developed by Dave Beckett (server – Perl,

Redland), Damian Steer (client – Java, Jena)

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

MEG Schemas Registry

• Reads machine-readable descriptions of metadata vocabularies– descriptions stored in Schemas (RDF/XML)– publication API (HTTP POST)

• also admin interface (HTTP GET)

• Indexes those descriptions• Provides browse/search interfaces for

– human readers (HTML)– software tools

• query API (HTTP GET) http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/ http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/

MEGClient

Vocabulary managers

MEG Registry (Server) Database

OtherApplications

(including other

Registries)

Information seekers

Webbrowser

RDF/XML

HTML browseinterface

Upload API (HTTP POST)

Query API (HTTP GET)

RDF/XML

RDF/XML(Schemas)

RDF/XML(Schemas)

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

The registry data model

• A simplification of complexity• Based on

– Dublin Core "Grammatical Principles"• Elements• Element Refinements• Encoding Schemes

– "Application Profile"• May "use" elements from multiple element sets• May specify obligation/cardinality• May specify encoding schemes• May narrow "standard" element semantics

AgencyElement

Set

AppProfile

Encoding Scheme

Element

ElementUsage

Value

1m

1

m

1

m

m m

1 m

m

m

1

m1m

1

m

m

1

reg:uses

reg:uses

http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title

A name given to the resource

rdfs:comment

rdf:Property

rdf:type

reg:isElementOf

reg:ElementUsage

rdf:type

http://.../qualifieddc/title

reg:uses

reg:isUsageIn

http://.../rslpcoll/title

reg:ElementUsage

rdf:type

The name of the collection

rdfs:comment

reg:uses

reg:isUsageIn

1. Registry browse menu http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/ http://meg.ukoln.ac.uk/

2. Display Element Set

3. Display Element

4. Display Element Usage

1. Create Application Profile description

Add AP

descriptionto Schema

Add AP details

2. Create Element Usage description

Search registry for

“title”Elements

Drag Element

To Profile

3. Create Element Usage description

Add Element

Usagedescriptionto Schema

Add ElementUsagedetails

4. Save Schema as RDF/XML

File -- Save As

Confirm

5. Submit Schema to Server

Click to submit

Finish

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

Some issues

• Is the registry data model generally useful? – Or too simple? Too DC-oriented?– Need Schemas in data model

• Review registry vocabulary– DCMI schema updates– RDF datatyping– OWL - Rich metadata about properties

• API is simple• To what extent can registry support non-RDF

applications? (IEEE LOM in XML)

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

Acknowledgements

• UKOLN is funded by Resource: the Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the UK higher and further education funding councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.

• http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

                                                             

The MEG Metadata Schemas Registry

Pete Johnston, Research Officer (Interoperability), UKOLN

UKOLN Staff Seminar

Bath, 25 June, 2003