Web Clearinghouse for Metadata and Cataloging Education: A Report

(version 2)

By Anita Coleman

Abstract: This report lists brief  recommendations and identifies draft policies on clearinghouse technical format (storage and archiving) needed, metadata (exactly how much citation information), issues of content ownership, populating the clearinghouse (collection development) and location of items, and evaluation. The starting point is a small review and co-optation and/or modification of successful educational digital library efforts (focused on MERLOT which has gained wide acceptance and DLESE which is praised as one of the best community-wide discipline-focused efforts to build an educational digital library). The audience for the clearinghouse are teachers (and learners).

Introduction:

MERLOT <http://merlot.org/> and DLESE <http://www.dlese.org> are two extremely well-funded and large-scale educational digital libraries that were intended to be used as models for this endeavor.  However, given 1) that the LIS cataloging education community is small in number and 2) educatters requested a variety of features, we may want to model the Clearinghouse, at least initially, on the California Clearinghouse for Library Instruction <http://ic.arc.losrios.edu/%7Eccli/>.  The major recommendation is to implement if not within the first version, at some not too distant future, an OAI-compliant repository.  This automatically makes available a number of other features that our users want such as, varying copyright attributions, author deposits, and role modelling of best practices in clearinghouse efforts.

Recommendations:

I. Name:

Rename as the Web Clearinghouse on Metadata and Cataloging Education (MACE). We've been calling it Cataloging and Metadata Education.

II. Clearinghouse Technical Format

Storage and Archiving:  Recommend that we follow the OAI-PMH compliant repository (software such as Eprints, Dspace, and Fedora) rather than referatory model.  In the OAI-repository model, the author deposits the materials or the author permits the materials from his/her website to be harvested and deposited (either programmatically or manually), and the corresponding metadata is OAI-PMH compliant (this is simple DC metadata).  In the referatory model, only links (and brief metadata) to the resources are provided.  The depository model has several advantages both computationally and humanly;

1) a centralized site makes maintenance and archiving easier
2) usage can be tracked more easily and meaningfully (citation indexes showing use can be generated)
3) problem of broken links can be largely avoided (by implementing link checkers)
4) annotation and use metadata can be more easily input and maintained

The referatory model has several maintenance implications such as regular link checking (to make sure that URLS have not disappeared suddenly) and the referatory model while it works has not proved to be the cost effective and efficient means of organization.

2.  Here are the features a depository should facilitate for resource deposit and subsequent use:
1) allow authors to upload documents and create metadata through simple forms and pull-down menus
2) allow users to edit resources and upload them as revisions
3) allow users to comment on resources
4) allow different levels of digital rights management (for example, if the author wishes to allow registered users of the depository access to WebCT then this should be possible)
5) provide usage services to authors/depositors (how many times was their document accesed/downloaded, etc.)

See DLIST, Digital Library for Information Science and Technology, for an example of a repository for LIS; DLIST is also well-documented (visit the DLIST About page: http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu/information.html).   

Metadata: At what level of granularity should resources be described?  Recommend the creation of metadata for individual resources rather than for 'teaching or learning collections'  but also leave this decision to the author in cases of self-deposit; This means both individual resources and collections description should be facilitated. Exactly how much citation information or cataloging information should the resource itself have? Recommend at a minimum OAI-PMH compliant metadata (simple Dublin Core).  

III. Issues of Content Ownership

Ethical/Intellectual Property Rights:

Recommendation: Authors maintain the copyright for their works.  Provide authors at time of deposit with a choice of several of the Creative Content Licenses <http://creativecommons.org/license/>.  For example, the Non-Attribution License, <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/>).  The highlighted code can  even be pasted in and added to with email contact information or other notices by those authors who wish to add it into their work <http://creativecommons.org/license/work-html-popup?lang=en&license_code=by-nc&format=text>. [MIT's Open Courseware uses Creative Content Licenses, http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/terms-of-use.htm>]

Collection Development:

Recommendation:  Multiple approaches to collection development will be necessary if the clearinghouse is to be of a substantial size.  These should include self-deposit and manual harvesting in the beginning with automatic harvesting to be implemented later. A best practice for each is described briefly below.

Self deposit: Authors do not deposit in repositories willingly.  Therefore, to encourage self-deposit by authors, offer a small incentive - usage reports.  If an author has contributed n number of materials they will be eligible for hits reports on their resources.

Manual harvest and deposit: The scholarly referee model (whereby an editor assigns articles to specialists who then produce reviews) can be adapted.  The main job of volunteer specialists would be to locate, deposit resources, and create the relevant metadata for specified topics or to work with relevant LIS school and/or CE instructors in their geographic region.

Location:  

In the OAI-depository model all items are deposited into an OAI-PMH compliant server.  

Evaluation:

Recommendation: Implement web usage logs to record and produce among other things such as hits, visits, and sessions, counts of downloading behaviors (how many times a resource was downloaded by unique users).

Policies:

Whether the recommendation to implement an OAI-PMH repository is chosen or not, policies for the following will probably need to be drafted:  collection development, ensuring user privacy, intellectual property, terms of use, and metadata creation. I have linked sample policies on each of these from various digital initiatives including DLESE, MERLOT, and DLIST:  DLIST User Privacy Policy, Gender and Science Digital Library Terms of Use , MERLOT Collection Development Guidelines [pdf file], DLESE Intellectual Property Policy.  Putting it all together: Cutting Edge Collection Policies.  Caveat: These are samples not requirements for our Clearinghouse MACE.

1 October, 2004