Presentation made at SE@M workshop in the context of EC-TEL 2010 in Barcelona, Spain (Tuesday, 28/9/2010)

1. Preliminary Discussion on a Digital
Curation Framework for Learning
Repositories
Nikos Palavitsinis1,2
, Nikos Manouselis1
,
Salvador Sanchez-Alonso2
1
Greek Research & Technology Network
2
University of Alcala
4th
International Workshop on Search and Exchange of e-le@rning Materials
27-28 September, 2010
Barcelona, Spain

2. Structure
• background – definitions
• quality in practice
• experiments
• towards digital cura-lity
• experts – users opinion
• e-Conference
• conclusions

3. background & definitions

4. problem
• Quality of the metadata provided by
annotators of the resources
• Experiences from Organic.Edunet Project
• Relevant experiences coming from:
– Ochoa & Duval (2006)
– Zschocke & Beniest (2009)

5. background
• PhD topic: Metadata Quality Issues
in Learning Object Repositories
• Behind the words: Trying to find ways of
improving the quality of metadata in learning
object repositories & portals
• Really… Behind the words: Can we introduce
mechanisms to ensure/control/assess quality
of metadata in learning repositories & portals?

6. concepts
• learning resource/object
• from information/audiovisual assets…
• …to complete educational programs
• collection of learning resources
• +metadata=learning repository
• online services
• learning portals

7. define: metadata
• “Metadata is structured information that
describes, explains, locates, or otherwise
makes it easier to retrieve, use, or manage an
information resource”
• Metadata must be always considered in a
specific context, i.e. education, research, etc.

8. define: curation
• “Curation includes verification and additions
to the existing documentation for objects.”
– Documentation = metadata
• Digital Curation
– …to maintain & add value to digital materials over
their entire life-cycle and over time for current and
future use

9. define: quality
• Level of excellence; A property or attribute
that differentiates a thing or person
• Quality is the suitability of procedures,
processes and systems in relation to the
strategic objectives

10. “quality intersections”
Repository Level
Portal Level
Resources Level
content/course
creator
end-user portal owner

11. quality in practice

12. Learning Resource Lifecycle
Retract
Expose
Describe
Discovery
Search
Social Rec.
Alerts
Evaluate
Select
Procure
Gather
Metadata
Enrich Resolution
Get
Reference
or LO
Create Integrate
Adapt & Reuse
Disaggregate
Aggregate
Modify
Use/PlayIntegrate
Local delete
Van Assche, Vuorikari, 2006

13. Organic.Edunet
• Project that makes digital content on topics of
Organic Agriculture & Agroecology available
• Using IEEE LOM Metadata
– Organic.Edunet AP
• Through the Organic.Edunet Portal
– With a well-defined Quality Process

14. Organic.Edunet approach
• overall quality strategy
• quality guide for the creation of learning
resources
• reflecting quality in metadata
• quality procedures within the repositories
(Quality Check, Peer-Review, …)
• quality procedures on a portal level (User
rating, Featured Resources, …)
• quality of educational activities

15. levels of quality considerations
• individual
•contribution by an individual (teacher,
learner, learning material designer, etc.)
• institutional contribution
•contribution through an institutional
provider (public/ private content provider,
educational organisation, another repository)

16. Learning Resource Lifecycle
Retract
Expose
Describe
Discovery
Search
Social Rec.
Alerts
Evaluate
Select
Procure
Gather
Metadata
Enrich Resolution
Get
Reference
or LO
Create Integrate
Adapt & Reuse
Disaggregate
Aggregate
Modify
Use/PlayIntegrate
Local delete
Van Assche, Vuorikari, 2006

17. Organic.Edunet AP
• With more than 10.000 resources
• With 11 repositories
• With partners from 10 different countries
• We needed a Metadata Application Profile
– Multilingual
– Ontology support

18. Development of APDefinition of own requirements
Selection of LOM elements
Semantics Refinement
Multiplicity constraints and values
Relationships and dependencies
Required extensions
Application Profile Binding Evaluation of AP
Evaluation phase
Results’ analysis
AP modifications

19. Experiment 1:
Evaluation Study
by subject matter experts
to elaborate on the process of
describing resources with metadata

20. Experiment Details
• Participants: 20
–Experts in Organic Agriculture, ICT, Education
• Date: January 2009
• Object: IEEE LOM AP Elements
• Tool: Questionnaire
–5 point scale for most questions and a 3-
value multiple choice in one of them

21. Is this element easy to understand?
Easy to understand
33%
42%
21%
4%
0%
Very Easy Fairly Easy Mediocre
Fairly Difficult Very Difficult

22. Is this element easy to understand?
• Best rated elements:
– General.Keyword
– Technical.Format
– Technical.Size
• Worst rated elements:
– Classification.Taxon
– Relation.Resource
– Educational.Semantic Density

23. Is this element useful?
Useful for your content
14%
41%
33%
12% 0%
Very Useful Fairly Useful Indifferent
Fairly Useless Completely Useless

24. Is this element useful?
• Best rated elements:
– General.Identifier
– General.Description
– Technical.Format
• Worst rated elements:
– Classification.Taxon
– Annotation.Entity
– Annotation.Date

25. Are the values clear & appropriate?
Clear Values
9%
50%
37%
4%
0%
Very Clear Fairly Clear Mediocre Fairly Confusing Very Confusing

26. Are the values clear & appropriate?
• Best rated elements:
– General.Description
– Rights.Cost
– Format.Size
• Worst rated elements:
– Classification.Taxon
– Classification.Purpose
– General.Identifier

27. Status of elements
Status Mandatory Recommended Optional
Pre-
evaluation
19 26 12
Post-
evaluation
25 21 11
% +31% -19% -8,3%

28. Experiment 2:
Usage Data Analysis
of data produced by subject matter
experts using an annotation tool
to provide metadata

29. Experiment Details
• Participants: 30
–Experts in Organic Agriculture, Education
• Date: January 2009 – March 2009
• Object: Actual usage of IEEE LOM AP
• Tool: Log files analysis

30. Results
• Metadata element: Keyword
Keyword Count % of filled % of total
From 1 to 3 296 48,4 26,8
From 4 to 6 197 32,2 17,8
From 7 to 9 97 15,9 8,8
More than 9 21 3,5 1,9
TOTAL 611 100% 55%

31. TaxonPathTaxonId Count % of filled % of total
1 or 2 237 52,1 21,4
3 or 4 99 21,8 9
5 or 6 46 10,1 4,2
More than 6 73 16 6,6
TOTAL 455 100% 41,2%
Results
• Metadata element: TaxonId

32. Intended End User
Role
Count % of filled % of total
1 or 2 385 68,1 34,8
3 or 4 143 25,3 12,9
5 or 6 37 6,6 3,3
TOTAL 565 100% 51%
Results
• Metadata element: End User Role

33. Mandatory Elements
• Not all mandatory elements were used in the
expected degree
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Resources
Title
Description
Language
Copyright and Other
Restrictions
Rights Cost

34. Recommended Elements
• Recommended elements present similar problems
0,00%
10,00%
20,00%
30,00%
40,00%
50,00%
60,00%
Resources
Keyword
Learning Resource Type
Intended End User Role
Contribute Role
Contribute Date
TaxonPathTaxonId
Contribute Entity
Context
Structure
Rights Description
Typical Age Range

35. Experiment 3:
Consultation with experts
Discussion on Quality Considerations in
Learning Repositories and Portals

36. Budapest, 17/9/2010
• Quality Considerations for Learning Portals
and Repositories in Agriculture, Food &
Environment
– 40 participants – mixed audience
– 17/9/2010
– Budapest, Hungary
– Organic.Edunet Final Conference

38. next: online consultation
• e-Conferenence
– From 6/10 to 20/10/2010
– e-Agriculture.org platform (>3.000 experts)
• Topics:
– building quality in the resource annotation,
curation & preservation life cycles;
– quality processes on a repository level;
– quality criteria and processes on a web portal
level

39. future directions:
towards digital cu-ality?

40. DCC Curation Lifecycle Model

41. Description & Preservation Information
Preservation Planning
Community Watch & Participation
Preserve CurateCurate
Create
&
Receive
Access,
Use &
Reuse
Access,
Use &
Reuse
IngestAppraise &
Select
Appraise &
Select
Transfor
m
Preservatio
n Action
Preservatio
n Action
StoreConceptualizeConceptualize
Dispose MigrateMigrate Reappraise
LR &
Metadata
LR &
Metadata
-Quality of metadata provided by subject matter experts
-Variability in quality amongst the metadata provided
-It requires skilled, professional curators
-Human resources do not scale well with many resources
-Lack of a unanimous definition of a learning resource
-How can you preserve anything without defining it first?

42. other issues
• Criteria for selecting LOs to curate
• Aggregation level is important for curation
• Ingest resources  Access rights? Owner?

43. next step
Retract
Expose
Describe
Discovery
Search
Social Rec.
Alerts
Evaluate
Select
Procure
Gather
Metadata
Enrich Resolution
Get
Reference
or LO
Create Integrate
Adapt & Reuse
Disaggregate
Aggregate
Modify
Use/PlayIntegrate
Local delete
Van Assche, Vuorikari, 2006

44. some thoughts
Dice: http://www.vatsgroup.com/Quality.htm
Stool: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000708.html