Tasks

Metadata for GIScience Education Materials

Given that significant international support has already been demonstrated for the Instructional Management System (IMS) and that considerable intellectual capital has already been invested, it is appropriate for this community to immediately begin active participation in IMS development. This task will review and refine the IMS standards to meet the specific needs of the GIScience education community.

Project stages

1. Review available relevant metadata specifications: Identify and review relevant metadata standards for education outside the Instructional Management System, including those in the library community, the WWW consortium and Alexandria Digital Library, in order to confirm that the IMS standards are appropriate for our further efforts and to identify elements of other standards (particularly GIS specific ones) which should be incorporated in to IMS.
• Personnel needed: one graduate researcher
• Time frame: begin as soon as possible, 2 months duration
• Expected result: short paper summarizing results, including URLs for all relevant sites. Must be posted on IGE website, might be published as an NCGIA technical report.
• Funding required: 2 months @ 100% for a graduate researcher, plus benefits

 
2. Refine metadata specifications: Assuming task 1 indicates that continued support for IMS is appropriate, form an information community group for IMS which will identify additional fields and field domains needed for GIScience education.  Otherwise, it will be necessary to redefine this task for the appropriate alternative.
• Personnel needed: small international task force working under the direction of IMS personnel, 6-8 GIS education materials developers from US, Europe and possibly Australia/NZ. May involve the establishment of a parallel domain SIG dealing with this information community in OGC.
• Time frame: begin as soon as possible, 6-9 months duration depending on availability of task force members, to incorporate results of Stage 1 as soon as they are available.
• Expected result: GIS extensions for IMS, distributed through IMS and OGC channels as well as .through various GIS channels (conference sessions, newsletter and journal articles). Possible NCGIA technical report/OGC white paper.
• Funding required: Travel expenses for two 3-4 day meetings (one US, one Europe) plus stipends for participation and contribution throughout the task period. Infrastructure support for metadata development process provided by IMS project.

 
3. Build metadata for selected exisiting materials as a proof of concept: Using materials in various on-line GIScience education materials under our control, build appropriate metadata additions or supplementary files as appropriate and put this information on-line. At the same time, colleagues with similar projects will be encouraged to participate by tagging their own files. Assuming the IMS project continues as expected, easy facilities for building metadata should exist soon. These activities will provide immediate feedback into the IMS metadata development process to identify and provoke necessary modifications and additions.
• Personnel needed: Task force members from previous stage will gradually append metadata to their own on-line materials. Possibly, one student research assistant at 50% time for 3 months to create and post on the WWW independent metadata files for materials which are not HTML or directly accessible on-line.
• Time frame: approximately 6 months from the completion of Stage 2 above.
• Expected result: A large body of tagged and searchable metadata on-line, plus information regarding needed revisions or modifications to the standard established in Stage 2.
• Funding required: Will vary on a site by site basis. For active, funded projects appending metadata should incur little additional cost or effort, however, being able to provide a supplement to significant relevant projects would help ensure adoption (perhaps 1 additional month of a graduate assistant at 50% for 4-6 major projects worldwide). If we decide to create additional independent metadata files, one student researcher for 3 months at 50% time.

 
4. Test and demonstrate metadata searching: Using the "soon-to-be-available" metadata search engines, perform controlled experiments to search for tagged educational materials, evaluating the success of the metadata in finding what is available and appropriate. Revise IMS GIS specifications as appropriate.
• Personnel needed: one graduate researcher for 3 months 50% time
• Time frame: 3 months beginning as soon as a sufficiently large body of tagged material is on-line and IMS metadata search engines exist.
• Expected result: Demonstration of the value of IMS metadata for GIS education and further revision of relevant metadata standards. Progress reported via IGE, IMS and OGC channels. Full results reported in next Stage.
• Funding required: graduate researcher for 3 months at 50% time plus benefits

 
5. Disseminate results: If all previous stages have been completed to our satisfaction, it will be necessary to inform the GIS education community of available metadata specifications, facilities and services. Conference presentations and articles in relevant magazines and newsletters are efficient outlets for this information. Efforts should be made to encourage on-going support for these activities.
• Personnel needed: IMS task force members and anyone else who has participated
• Time frame: can begin to report as soon as Stage 2 is well underway and should continue 6 months after completion of Stage 4.
• Expected result: widespread support for metadata tags throughout the GIS education community, widespread addition of metadata to available education materials, motivation for improved metadata search engines.
• : none essential, though support for conference attendance and workshops at meetings worldwide throughout one year would ensure widespread adoption of the standards.