- From: MacKenzie Smith <kenzie@MIT.EDU>
- Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 17:29:37 -0400
- To: SIMILE public list <www-rdf-dspace@w3.org>
Hi Mark, I haven't read Paul's article yet (I'll get to it soon) but I'd like to respond to this thread right away. >As your paper correctly notes, there is a huge difference between metadata >that describes how we might use a resource and metadata that describes a >resource. Actually, in the world of metadata producers (aka catalogers) it's pretty well understood that there's absolutely no such thing as objective descriptive metadata. *All* metadata is informed by context, world-view, usage scenario, educational background, and other attributes of the person supplying the metadata for a particular purpose. >The problem we face here is IMS is a "use" metadata schema for an >educational context, whereas VRA is a descriptive metadata schema. I disagree. IMS is descriptive metadata for an educational or pedagogical context. VRA is descriptive metadata for a more general, research-oriented context. So some elements are shared and others are unique to each schema. I don't think the distinction you're trying to make between "use" and "description" is useful -- description is provided as a short cut to help an intended audience, whether that audience is identified explicitly or not. Maybe usage information is just explicit in IMS while it's implied in VRA. Which isn't to say that we won't toss out some IMS elements which are *so* specific to the educational/pedagogical context that they have no value in any other domain. It might even turn out that the useful subset of the IMS schema is approximately equivalent to Dublin Core. But I don't believe that VRA and IMS are that fundamentally different: description and context and use are really inseparable... Best, MacKenzie/ MacKenzie Smith Associate Director for Technology MIT Libraries Building 14S-208 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 (617)253-8184 kenzie@mit.edu
Received on Monday, 29 September 2003 17:37:12 UTC