Metadata : Concentrating on the data, not on the scheme

Imma SubiratsFAO of the United Nations

Marcia ZengKent State University

euroCRIS Meeting Bologna (Italy) April 26-27, 2011

FAO AIMS

http://aims.fao.org/

Agricultural Information Management Standards

• Background• The first step for

contributing “LOD”• LODE Recommendations

– LODE-BD introduction– The decision trees

Outline

Background

Refers to a set of best practices for publishing, sharing, and interlinking structured data on the Web

Key technologies • URIs for identifying entities or concepts in the world• RDF model for structuring and linking descriptions of things• HTTP for retrieving resources or descriptions of resources

Linked Open Data

Breaking Silos, Linking Data!

Linking Open Data cloud diagram as of 2010-09, by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. http://lod-cloud.net/

Guidelines and recommendations on what standards to follow and how to prepare LOD-ready metadata are essential

• There is no one-size-fits-all approach• During the last two decades a great number of

metadata-related standards have been created by different communities for specifics purposes.

Decisions on what standard(s) to adopt will directly impact the degree of LOD-readiness of the bibliographic data

Metadata Standards

The first step for contributing to "LOD" 

…are likely to have specific questions about encoding strategies, such as:

Data and service providers…

• What metadata standard(s) should be used?• What is the minimal set of properties meaningful in

data sharing?• Is there any metadata model or application profile that

can be reused or followed?• What kind of value should we exchange: the literal

forms representing a concept or the URI identifying the concept ?

• How should we encode our data?

LODE Recommendations

LOD-Enabled

• To assist information professionals to decide what metadata terms to use when encoding existing bibliographic data

• To provide a set of recommendations that will support the selection of appropriate encoding strategies for producing LOD-enabled data

ObjectivesLOD-Enabled

• To promote the use of well-established metadata standards

• To encourage the use of authority data, controlled vocabularies, and syntax encoding standards whenever possible

• To encourage the use of resource URIs as names for things for data values when they are available

• To facilitate the decision-making process regarding data encoding for the purpose of exchange and reuse

• To provide a reference support that is open for suggestions of new properties and metadata terms

5 PrinciplesLOD-Enabled

The LODE-Bibliographical Data (LODE-BD)

LOD-Enabled BD

• a reference tool in selecting appropriate encoding strategies

– uses flowcharts to present individualized decision trees for metadata properties

• aims to address two questions – how to encode bibliographic data for the purpose of exchanging data; and – how to encode these data as Linked Open Data (LOD) - enabled bibliographic data

LODE-BD

Once a content provider has decided to publish a bibliographical database as Linked Open Data….

LOD-Enabled BD

What kinds of entities and

relationships are involved in bibliographic resource description?

Thema

Resource

Agent

What properties should be considered for publishing meaningful/useful LOD-ready bibliographic data?

1. Title Information2. Responsible Body3. Physical Characteristics4. Location5. Subject6. Description of content7. Intellectual property 8. Usage 9. Relation between documents / agents

A selected widely-used metadata standards and the emerging LOD-enabled vocabularies

dc: Dublin Core Metadata Element Setdcterms: DCMI Metadata Terms bibo: Bibliographic Ontologyagls: AGLS Metadata Standard

(Australian Government Locator Service)

ags: AgMES (Agricultural Metadata Element set)

eprint: Eprints Terms, UKOLN

marcrel: MARC List for Relators

What metadata standards should be used for preparing LOD-ready metadata?

What metadata terms are appropriate in any given property for publishing LOD-ready metadata based on a local database?

Decision Trees

LOD-Enabled BD

• Assisting in the metadata term selection process• Flowcharts to present individualized decision

trees for the properties included in each of the nine groups– Starting from the property that describes a resource instance,

each flowchart presents decision points and gives a step-by-step solution to a given problem of metadata encoding

– designed to facilitate the selection of the appropriate strategies adjustable to data providers according to their situations

Decision TreesLOD-Enabled BD

• At the end of each flowchart there are alternative sets of metadata terms for selection

• Each chart is followed by the text-based explanations corresponding to the flowchart, with notes, steps, and examples whenever necessary in the tables

Decision TreesLOD-Enabled BD

Decision TreesSubject

Decision TreesResponsible Body. Creator

Step Forward References and Links

• How to publish and consume Linked Data• Where to find Linked Data sets and

Vocabularies• How to express metadata with different

syntaxes: text, html, xml, rdf, and rdfa• Why publish bibliographic data as Linked

Data

LOD-Enabled BD

http://aims.fao.org/lode/bd/

The AIMS Team

euroCRIS Meeting Bologna (Italy) April 26-27, 2011