Standards for LOM

WHAT ARE THE STANDARDS FOR LOM ?

There are many different organisations involved in the creation of standards for metadata.The standards are based on a thesaurus (a controlled vocabulary) which contains key words to describe a LO in terms of content and discipline. This allows any user to retrace the LO and helps to identify

the author of the LO

the date of the LO

potential target of users

the software used to produce the LO

the format of the LO and where it would be used

links with other documents

The compilation of the metadata fields is up to the author , but some of these are automatically compiled by the system.

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative -DCMI and IEEE/LOM- 2001 are the most important initiatives that have provided largely used standards.

dublincore.gif DUBLIN CORE METADATA INITIATIVE (DCMI) - 1999

One of the first organisations involved in metadata was Dublin Core.This organisation takes its name from its location in Dublin Ohio where the first working group was established.
DCMI proposed a standard which concerns the description of the resource which is presented on the web (therefore also non didactic).
It is characterised by a minimalist approach, with few descriptors which are easily understood and can be adapted to a wide range of resources.
This represents the departure point of successive developments up to current research concerning the semantic web.
The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) is made up of 15 elements which can be grouped under three main headings:

CONTENT

INTELLECTUAL PROPRIETY

CHARACTERISTICS

- Title
- Subject
- Description
- Source
- Language
- Link
- Cover
- Creator
- Contributor

- Rights
- Date
- Type
- Format
- Identifying features

As far as the educational field is concerned DCMI provides very few indications abouthow to use the resource and it suggests adding other elements such as the educational level of the user and the instructional method employed in the development of the resource.

It is, nevertheless, an adaptation as the Dublin Core Metadata Scheme is mainly devised to describe any kind of online resources.

ieeelogo.gif IEEE/LOM- 2001

In 2001 the Institute of Electrical Electronics Engineers developed a standard based on the smallest collection of attributes which were necessary to manage, locate and evaluate didactic resources.

The standard comprises 9 categories which can be broken down into approximately 70 fields.

An example: clicking on the category n.6 named "Rights" it is possible to enter and fill in the three following fields:

- costs

it provides information if the use of the resource is submitted to any forms of payment

- copyright

it highlights if the use of the resource is covered by copyright

- description

it provides comments on the conditions of use of the resource.

Here are the 9 IEEE/LOM categories:

N.

CATEGORIES
FIELD

NUMBER

DESCRIPTORS
1.

General

11

It provides general information on the resource, for example an unambiguous identifier (URI, ISBN, DOI etc.), the title, the language, the description, the time and space used and the structure of the resource (atomic, branched, collection, networked, hierarchical, linear, mixed, parcelled)

2.

Lifecycle

6

It provides information on the history and evolution of the resource, the date of its creation and editing, the version, the primary and secondary contributions etc.

3.

Meta-metadata

9

This category provides information on the scheme of metadata adopted, the author of the standard, the language of the scheme (that can be different from the one of the resource), its format etc.

4.

Technical

12

This category describes the technical requirements and characteristics of the resource (format, size, technical specifications, duration etc.)

5.

Educational

11

It provides information on the educational or pedagogic use of the resource. This category is of major interest for teachers and developers' communities.

6.

Rights

3

It provides information on the intellectual rights of the resource, copyright matters and conditions of use.

7.

Relation

7

It provides information on the relationship between one resource and another, if one exists; it is a useful strategy to discover relationships with other resources; in fact it is not possible to do this within the resource/learning object because being self-consistent, a LO can't contain links to any other resources.

8.

Annotations

3.

It provides comments on the educational use of the resource, and information on the author and the date of comments; it differs from other categories as it is reserved for users, evaluators, etc.

9.

Classification

8

It provides information on the theme or subject dealt with in the resource.
In case of free key words it is necessary to specify the relevant semantic context, for example the Dewey Decimal Classification(DDC), the Library of Congress Classification (LOC) or the European Educational Thesaurus (EET o TEE)