Notes/Assignments

1. SEMESTER-I
DL04 - Information Management
ASSIGNMENT – D1
WHAT ARE METADATA STANDARDS? EXPLAIN DUBLIN CORE IN DETAIL.
By Shweta Ravindra Bhavsar
Roll No - (2019PGDLIM020)
(2019-2020)
Centre for Library and Information Management Studies
Sir Dorabji Tata Memorial Library
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 DEFINITION.......................................................................................................................................... 1
2. METADATA STANDARDS...................................................................................................................... 1
3. DUBLIN CORE........................................................................................................................................... 3
3.2 Encoding Example : .......................................................................................................................... 8
3.3 Advantages and disadvantages of Dublin core......................................................................... 8
4. CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................................ 8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................ 9

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1. What is Metadata? Explain different types and its role in digital resource management
2. What are Metadata Standards? Explain Dublin Core in detail.
2. What are Metadata Standards? Explain Dublin Core in detail.
Answer
1. INTRODUCTION
Emergence of World Wide Web developed many research tools across all fields of study.
Until 1990s, the term was familiar data management community, systems design Earlier.
The metadata concept has become a pivotal in the development of digital libraries. "meta"
is a Greek word that means "alongside, with, after, next." Earlier librarians used to make
handwritten list of the items, since then metadata exists. In simple words metadata is
structured data about data which helps to Locate information. Main function of metadata is
discovery of resources. Metadata standards basically gives identification to digital objects,
also helps to archive and preserve e-resources. libraries used to store metadata of the
resources in the form of card catalogs. Then in 2000s, libraries started preserving data
digitally and described this data with metadata standards. Information object in digital library
could be single item or collection of items. Record of the resources will be in two form either
it will already be embedded in the item e.g. CIP data, TEI header or separate from the item
e.g. library’s catalog. Metadata is a backbone of digital collection.
1.1 DEFINITION
• Data about data. (National Information Standards, 2004)
• (Day, 1998) defined “metadata is commonly understood as an amplification of
traditional bibliographic cataloguing practices in an electronic environment.”
2. METADATA STANDARDS
Simply putting information in digital libraries is not enough. Metadata standards are providing
framework to access the information and some description is required for accessing the
information. Metadata standards proving uniform and unique way of data description and
browsing. Mainly include are content, context and structure of the data. Metadata
comprises of catalog records created according to classification number, cataloging rules
and subject headings, abstracts and indexes. This includes content standards like RDA,
AACRII, CCO, DACS, CSDGM, etc. Through OPACs and commercial online databases,
websites, etc. this metadata is made available to the users. Metadata standards are
necessary for retrieving of the relevant information. Metadata standards allow to harvest

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metadata by Open Archives Initiative (OAI) protocol this uses Unqualified Dublin Core.
Content, structure, links between digital objects and functionality these factors needs to be
considerate for effective implementation of metadata standards. For standardization
language, spellings, title and date format, etc need to considerate.
• Metadata structure standards make sure uniform structure of every single entry. Help
implementing data searching and data sharing. Hierarchical structure standards give
authority to context and content to be described. This can be intrinsic or extrinsic to an
information element.
• Consistent data entry is possible for effective searching because of content rules. This
helps to organize and effective retrieving of the information and this is intrinsic to an
information element. Give information, what object is about. Content rules comprises
authority files vocabularies, thesauri, classifications and semantic rules, ontologies.
• Metadata Context gives information about who, what, why, how data is created and is
extrinsic to an information element.
• Metadata mark-up languages standards confirm that metadata is human-readable
and machine-readable and support automated search. Metadata stored in HTML, XML
format.
• “Metadata packaging standards define the links between digital objects and their
metadata while binding the components into archival packages” as defined by the OAIS
Reference Model (Open Archival Information Systems Reference Model — ISO
14721:2003)
Main component is schema provide overall structure to set of elements in given collection.
These schemas/standards adopted by national or international bodies such as the ISO
(International Organization for Standardization), BSI (British Standards Institution) and ICA
(International Council on Archives). Number of elements consist into metadata. Metadata
categorised into three main type i.e. Descriptive metadata, Structural metadata,
Administrative metadata.
• Descriptive metadata identify, locate and fetch author, publisher, title, etc. object’s
information also provide links to related resources. Provide the purpose of the articular
object. Example, Cataloging and indexing records, version differentiation, manage
information.
• Structural metadata helps resources to store in structured manner. Example
arrangement of page numbers.

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• Administrative metadata provides technical information and help to manage sources.
Also known as meta-metadata. Subdivided into two types Rights management metadata
deals with IPR and preservation metadata contains how to archive and preserve e-
resources.
Standards helps to maintain the consistency in metadata application and support resource
sharing. Different schemas will contain different elements as per the requirement of the
community. There are specific and general metadata standards. General standards are
Dublin Core (DC), Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS). Access to Biological
Collection Data (ABCD), Darwin Core, etc. are the science schema. Arts and Humanities
schemas are VRA Core, PBCore, etc. MARC, METS, MODS are library related
standards/schema.
3. DUBLIN CORE (DC) (https://www.dublincore.org/ )
Tag line is – “innovation in metadata design, implementation & best practice” (DCMI,n.d.)
Trademark of Dublin Core - Dublin Core™ (DCMI, n.d.)
International Standards Organization Standard 15836-2003 is for “Dublin Core Metadata
Element Set”. Dublin Core is data structure standards and easy to use, understand and
implement. Dublin Core is named for Dublin city because the core set of elements was
developed in 1995 at OCLC/NCSA metadata workshop in Dublin, Ohio, USA. Dublin Core
Metadata mainly consist of 15 elements. Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) is
managing specification and development of the Dublin Core. DCMI is supported by paid-
membership model, the categories of membership are Regional Members, Institutional
Members, Supporting Members. To develop and define the core set of elements for the
authors so that they can described their own Web resources was the main objective of
Dublin Core. The goal was to make it easy to discover resources on internet by developing
metadata standards also to develop few and simple elements so that noncatalogers could
be able to apply it. Other Dublin core standards are RFC5791 (updated in 2010), ANSI/NISO
Z39.85-2001 (Z39-85-2012 updated in 2012), and ISO 15836-1:2017 (updated).part 2 of
this ISO standard was expected in 2019. DCMI has four specification such as Doblin Core,
Dublin Core schemas, LRMI and BIBO(Bibliographic Ontology). DCMI represents
Syntactic Interoperability support broad range of business models and purposes. and
OAI-PMH for metadata harvesting.
Logo Image of Dublin Core - (DCMI, n.d.)

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Dublin Core Metadata Element Set – Version 1.0 issued in September, 1997 and
Version 1.1 issued on 2nd July 1999. DCMI conducted Annual international conference,
last year it was held in Seoul, South Korea by National Library of Korea. Also, conducted
tutorials, webinars and workshops.
Simple (unqualified) and Qualified are two types of Dublin Core Metadata standards. Title,
Contributor, Coverage, Creator, Date, Description, Format, Identifier Language, Publisher,
Relation, Rights, Source, Subject,Type are fifteen elements of Simple Dublin Core Metadata
originally it was thirteen. Audience, Provenance and RightsHolder also known as
qualifiers are three additional elements of Qualified Dublin Core metadata but not included
in Simple Dublin Core Metadata. Qualified Dublin Core metadata includes additional
properties and sub-properties and provide namespaces. All elements are repeatable,
optional and can arrange the elements in any sequence. For Description, Creator and Date
Dublin Core provide semantic vocabulary. Dublin core recommends to use controlled
vocabulary but it is not possible in every field for example subject field but library can
maintain one authoritative file for the same. Element refinement and Encoding scheme are
two types of qualifiers used in Doblin Core Metadata.
/elements/1.1/, /terms/, /dcmitype/, /dcam/ are four DCMI namespaces and each one
has Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), in Linked Data. Namespace gives additional
information and differentiate same variables, classes, etc. Each one contains different
elements. The main 15 elements come under /elements/1.1 namespace. Fifteen Doblin
Core Metadata and extension vocabularies Combinedly called as “DCMI metadata terms.”
These terms are used with other metadata terms in context of application profiles.
DCMI provides XMLS Schemas, RDFS Schemas these are the formal schema languages
gives structure and syntax of metadata. World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed and
maintained XML Schema. For Simple Dublin Core, XML schema “2002-12-12” version is
available then version “2002-03-12” came in. Earlier, version 2006-01-06 was used for
Qualified Dublin Core now “2008-02-11” version is in use. RDF schema language is use in
Semantic Web and linked Data applications.
Dublin Core metadata registry developed by different communities and groups to maintain
“Dublin Core Library Application Profile” and “Dublin Core Collection Description Application
Profile” for describing published library holdings and describing whole collections,
respectively.

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Dublin Core cannot fulfil the pedagogical perspective of a document for that DC-
Education Application profile has been proposed by DC Education Working Group for
describing educational resources. The recommended schemas are as follows: -
• DC iEducation ‘namespace’ (domain specific) extensions are DCEducation Relation
qualifier- conforms to, DCEducation Element–standard, DCEducation Element –
audience, DCEducation Standard qualifier – identifier, DCEducation Standard
qualifier – version, DCEducation Audience qualifier -mediator. Also, IEEE Learning
Object Metadata (LOM) “InteractivityLevel, TypicalLearningTime, InteractivityType”
elements are recommended.
Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI)
Bing, Google, and Yahoo search engines created Schema.org aim is to “create, maintain
and promote schemas for structured data on the internet, on web pages, in email messages
and beyond.” (schemas.org imitative website -about). Webmasters uses this vocabulary and
by this search engines able to understand published content this method called as Search
engine optimization. The Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) and Creative
Commons (CC) is directed and started the project in 2011 the Learning Resource Metadata
Initiative (LRMI). For tagging online learning resources LRMI developed standard metadata
framework. LRMI specification version is 1.1 is basically collection of classes and properties,
describe the education resources. This LRMI specification is built on schema.org and
different metadata standards. For online educational resources LRMI could be de facto
standard.
Dublin Core further categorized into three groups :-
Name, Identifier, Version, Registration Authority, Language, Definition, Obligation,
Datatype, Maximum Occurrence, Comment these are ten attributes of the Dublin Core from
ISO11179 standard which describe the data elements. Excluding Name, Identifier, Definition
and Comment all other six attributes are common to all and values of these attributes are
given below -

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Version – 1.1
Language – en
Datatype – Character String
Registration Authority – Dublin Core
Obligation – Optional
Maximum Occurrence – Unlimited
The reamaning attributes Name, Identifier, Definition and Comment of each element are as
given below :-

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(DCMI, n.d.)
3.1 General Guidelines : Use different vocabulary encoding scheme such as LCC,
MESH,DDC, LCSH, IMT, TGN, DCMIType NLM, UDC and Syntax Encoding Schemes
ISO3166, Point, ISO639-3, RFC3066, RFC4646, ISO639-2, Period, RFC1766, for
standardized the data. Apply encoding schemes according to appropriability of element.

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Also, avoid abbreviations and ending with punctuation except the part of the data. Exclude
initial articles such as a,an,the in the beginning of the title.
3.2 Encoding Example :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<metadata
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
<dc:title>Dublin Core </dc:title>
<dc:creator> Bhavsar, Shweta </dc:creator>
<dc:subject> Dublin Core ,Metadata Standards </dc:subject>
<dc:description> Metadata standards basically gives identification to digital objects, also
helps to archive and preserve e-resources. Dublin Core Metadata mainly consist of 15
elements.</dc:description>
<dc:publisher>TISS</dc:publisher>
<dc:contributor> Bhaskar, Shreya </dc:contributor>
<dc:date>2019-02-11</dc:date>
<dc:format>11p.</dc:format>
<dc:identifier>2019pgdlim020</dc:identifier>
<dc:source>www.dublincore.org</dc:source>
<dc:language>English</dc:language>
<dc:rights>Shweta Bhavsar</dc:rights>
<dc:rights>TISS</dc:rights>
</metadata>
3.3 Advantages and disadvantages of Dublin core
Advantages : By using Dublin Core standards classification of documents have become
easier than earlier and easy to read by search engines. Dublin Core elements does not
affect source code. Allows metadata harvesting. Easy to learn and implement. Rules are not
very rigorous.
Disadvantages : No cataloging rules for entering the data in the field. Less consistency.
Less detail level of element may not fulfil all communities needs. Also,the every field is not
mandatory this can effect the interoperability.
4. CONCLUSION
Metadata standards gives identification to digital objects and helps to archive and preserve
e-resources also maintain the consistency and support the resources sharing. There are
specific and general metadata standards available. Doblin Core is general metadata
standard support innovation in metadata design. Include fifteen elements with ten attributes
in which six are common to all emelemts. Goal of Dublin Core is to connect data from various
open sources and create sematic web.

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REFERENCES
1. CDP Metadata Standards Working Group.(2006). CDP Dublin Core Metadata Best
Practices (Version 2.1.1). N.p.: Collaborative Digitization Program DOI :
10.6082/M1Z31WK9
2. Dashrath, V.B. (2014). Role of metadata in digital resource management. International
Journal of Digital Library Services,4(3),209-217. ISSN:2250-1142.
3. Day, M. (1998). Issues and Approaches to Preservation Metadata. In Proceedings from
the Joint RLG and NPO Preservation Conference : Guidelines for digital imaging,
September 28–30, 1998. (pp. 73-84). London : National Preservation Office. DOI:
10.13140/2.1.3492.1288
4. DCMI. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2020, from https://www.dublincore.org/
5. Farooq, U. (2018). Metadata concepts and standards [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from
https://www.slideshare.net/umarfarooq416/metadata-concepts-and-standards
6. Haneefa K. M. & Chembrakuzhi,M. (2014). Metadata Standards for Open Educational
Resources. In 59th ILA International Conference on Managing Libraries in the Changing
Information World 2014. Roorkee: IIT Roorkee. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305298208_Metadata_Standards_for_Open_Ed
ucational_Resources?enrichId=rgreq-d57cdc6957b59ac7f23eba502def35da-
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7. National Information Standards, N. (2004). Understanding metadata. National Information
Standards, 20. Retrieved from https://www.niso.org/publications/understanding-metadata
8. NISO. (2004). Understanding Metadata. Bethesda, MD : NISO Press, National
Information Standards Organization. Retrieved from
http://www.niso.org/publications/press/UnderstandingMetadata.pdf
9. Quam, E., (2000). Minnesota metadata guidelines for Dublin Core metadata : training
manual. St. Paul, MN : Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Retrieved from
http://mn.gov/bridges/bestprac/training.pdf
10. What are Metadata Standards | Digital Curation Centre. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11,
2020, from http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resources/briefing-papers/standards-watch-papers/what-
are-metadata-standards