Ask DCMI: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is an organization dedicated to promoting the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards and developing specialized metadata vocabularies for describing resources that enable more intelligent information discovery systems.

DCMI. Design>Information Design>XML>Metadata

Commercializing the Semantic Web

The Semantic Web really is an attempt to reconceptualize and reengineer AI for the Web. Discusses the path forward for successfully selling and developing Semantic Web technology into industry.

Clark, Kendall Grant. XML.com (2003). Design>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Describing Document Structure  

Discusses some different ways of describing your document structure so that both computers and humans know what you mean.

Tyson, Paul H. Intercom (2003). Design>Information Design>XML>Metadata

Describing Document Structure, Part 2  

Discusses some different ways of describing your document structure so that both computers and humans know what you mean.

Tyson, Paul H. Intercom (2003). Design>Information Design>XML>Metadata

Designing a New Schema with XML Design Patterns

Proposes the design of an XML-based type library format. If you've had exposure to Microsoft COM or Mozilla's XPCOM, you're probably familiar with their binary TLB (MS) and XDT (Mozilla) formats that define the available operations and interfaces for a package of portable components. An interpreted language such as JavaScript can use these definitions as cheat sheets to find out what operations and parameters are available to call on-the-fly.

Downey, Kyle. XML.com (2003). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata

DITA: What You Need To know about the Darwin Information Typing Architecture  

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is a hot topic among those who author, edit, deliver and manage content. But adopting a standard architecture is an important decision that requires up front research and knowledge of the pitfalls. Find out if DITA is right for your organization. Read this whitepaper to learn more (PDF).

Manning, Steve. Rockley Group, The (2005). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Dublin Core Conference Summary 2003

What is Dublin Core? And why would you need a whole conference about it? The end of September and beginning of October brought representatives from various countries around the world to a sunny and warm Seattle, Washington, host of the 2003 Dublin Core Conference.

Gonzales-Chan, Madonnalisa and Sarah Rice. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata

Dublin Core Corporate Circles of Interest

The 2002 Dublin Core annual conference and workshop marked the beginning of a new effort by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) to involve members of the corporate world in the evolution and application of the Dublin Core standard. The first meetings of two DCMI Circles of Interest were held on Monday, October 14, 2002, followed the next day by a panel session with several members of the Circles presenting their initial observations and conclusions to the wider conference.

Crandall, Mike. Montague Institute Review (2002). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata

Easy Topic Maps

Topic maps are a standard for storing metadata (similar to thesauri, or RDF). They can be used to generate navigation for a website, and lots of other metadata tasks. Topic maps are a new standard (since + 2000) and are slowly starting to be discovered.

Easytopicmaps.com (2003). Resources>Information Design>XML>Metadata

New Metadata Standards for Digital Resources: MODS and METS

Metadata has taken on a new look with the advent of XML and digital resources. XML provides a new versatile structure for tagging and packaging metadata as the rapid proliferation of digital resources demands both rapidly produced descriptive data and the encoding of more types of metadata. Two emerging standards are attempting to harness these developments for library needs. The first is the Metadata Object and Description Schema (MODS), a MARC-compatible XML schema for encoding descriptive data. The second standard is the Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS), a highly flexible XML schema for packaging the descriptive metadata and various other important types of metadata needed to assure the use and preservation of digital resources.

Guenther, Rebecca and Sally McCallum. ASIST (2002). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

The Problem of Ingesting and Delivering Complex Objects from Digital Repositories  

The recent emergence of online digital archives has brought educators a major step closer to bringing original, reusable digital objects into undergraduate classrooms. Yet having to search multiple archives through mind-numbing search-and-browse routines can make it extremely difficult for educators to use the repositories successfully in their curriculum. What educators need is a suite of tools that allow them to reduce the search for relevance, expand the metadata with user-specific annotation, and tie the digital libraries' content directly to course materials. The keys to creating these resources are to build distributed networks of users and repositories. Cost containment often severely limits the amount of descriptive metadata that can be catalogued. Students and instructors create topical annotated bibliographies or lists of media clips (or segments of media clips) and 'publish' these for class, work group, or more general use. Allowing teachers and students to annotate and segment media as well as build their own galleries greatly enhance the educational value of digital objects by augmenting the minimal descriptive metadata and facilitating the building of complex digital objects tailored to the needs of specific education standards and curricula. The project uses a METS XML schema that provides an encoding format for administrative, descriptive, and structural metadata that is fully compliant with OAIS, and open source applications to facilitate ingestion and delivery (as well as help to control costs).

Kornbluh, Mark, Jerry Goldman and Dean Rehberger. Michigan State University (2005). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Semantic Anchors for XML

XML syntax is just the foundation for data interoperability. The next step is semantic transparency. Some groups are working to address this by defining entire document formats to be adopted wholesale, while other groups are working on ways to express common terminology and concepts at a more granular level. In this installment, Uche Ogbuji looks at XML Topic Maps Published Subjects and Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF), two ideas that take the granular approach by seeking to provide anchors in the semantic stream.

Ogbuji, Uche. IBM (2003). Design>Information Design>XML>Metadata

The Semantic Web: 1-2-3

This document is not intended to teach you RDF via my own words, but rather to hand-hold you through the 'good' parts of the same journey I took. If it looks like a big link-list with menial comments from the peanut gallery, then you're not far off the mark of my intent. This is by no means definitive, nor was that the goal.

Disobey.com (2003). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

The Semantic Web: An Introduction

This document is designed as being a simple but comprehensive introductory publication for anybody trying to get into the Semantic Web: from beginners through to long time hackers. Recommended pre-reading: the Semantic Web in Breadth.

Palmer, Sean B. InfoMesh (2001). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Semantic Web Hacking

This is a general collection of my Semantic Web hackings, often using CWM and the Notation3 (N3) format.

Palmer, Sean B. InfoMesh (2001). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

The Semantic Web In Breadth

This piece speaks about the different parts of the Semantic Web and how they fit together.

Swartz, Aaron. LogicError (2003). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Strategies in Re-Purposing Graphics for Interactive Intelligent Delivery

In the domain of aerospace/defense, a products life cycle may likely span up to 30 years. The amount of technical data required to manufacture, operate, and maintain those products is immense. The graphic representation of that data facilitates the communication of operational and maintenance instructions. This paper outlines issues with creating, authoring, revising, and delivering intelligence with graphics and the associated meta-data.

Woolsey, Jeremiah and Martin Jackson. XML Europe (2001). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata

Topic-Oriented Information Development and Its Role in Globalization

For all of its upside, XML-based single-source publishing has proven to be expensive and complicated to implement. XML-based single sourcing requires significant tool development, data conversion, and system integration prior to realizing the benefits of repurposing and reuse. To mitigate this, some vertical industries have developed their own XML tag sets. While successful on their own, these vertical industry efforts have not been extensible to other industries. A new XML-based approach to information development is the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA).

Trippe, Bill. Gilbane Report (2004). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

What Is RDF?

RDF was originally created in 1999 as a standard on top of XML for encoding metadata--literally, data about data. Metadata is, of course, things like who authored a web page, what date a blog entry was published, etc., information that is in some sense secondary to some other content already on the regular web. Since then, and perhaps especially after the updated RDF spec in 2004, the scope of RDF has really evolved into something greater. The most exciting uses of RDF aren't in encoding information about web resources, but information about and relations between things in the real world: people, places, concepts, etc.

Tauberer, Joshua. XML.com (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Metadata

An XML Architecture for Technical Documentation: The Darwin Information Typing Architecture  

DITA is an architecture for creating topicoriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It is also an architecture for creating new information types and describing new information domains, allowing groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while at the same time reusing common output transforms and design rules. We discuss several methods that can be used to extend DITA’s basic topic types.

Day, Don, Erik Hennum, John Hunt, Michael Priestley and David Schell. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML