Building and Contributing Collections

Aquatic Modeling Workshop Shelley OldsJuly 17 – 22, 2005 DLESE Program Center

UCAR(support@dlese.org)

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Primary Goal of DLESE

Facilitate learning about Earth at all Facilitate learning about Earth at all educational levels, formal and educational levels, formal and informalinformal

• Strategies to Achieve This Goal Develop high quality collections Provide access to Earth data, imagery & tools Create discovery and distribution systems Provide support services to create/use materials Facilitate communication across all interests of

Earth system education

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Scope of DLESE Collection

• Emphasizes Earth as a System Study of processes, states, cycles and interactions Global and local perspectives Interdisciplinary connections between atmosphere,

geosphere, hydrosphere, space and biosphere

• Emphasizes Education Learning and teaching for improved understanding

of Earth’s history, processes, and resources Supports research and assessment activities

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Materials in DLESE• Educational materials - homework exercises, tutorials, guided

inquiry sets, lesson plans, syllabi, classroom activities, curricula, modules, field trips, problem sets

• Assessment and pedagogical materials - exams, quizzes, self-assessments, learning/teaching techniques and educational research

• Research materials - journal articles, summaries, abstracts, case studies, arguments, theses, policies, indices, etc.

• Data - Earth and space data (imagery, numeric values, maps)

• Annotations - comments, reviews, teaching tips, additional content

• News and opportunities - information on grants, conferences, workshops, professional development, opportunities, etc.

• Tools - software or applications for interacting, accessing, manipulating or viewing, calculators and converters, models

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Part 1: Build & Contribute Collection Process

1. Is the collection theme within DLESE scope

2. Determine type and format of collection

3. Understand collection policies

4. Create a scope statement

• Determine collection building strategy

• Determine collection selection criteria

5. Create metadata records (catalog resources)

6. Send metadata records to DLESE

7. Approval - Collections Accessioning Taskforce

8. Maintain the collection

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Scope it Out - Mystery in a Bag - Activity

• Goal: To have another team understand what is in

your mystery bag without them having to open the bag

• Directions: In teams of 4, examine your mystery bag Create a collection with a theme Decide which things do or don’t meet your

theme. Those that do, put back in the bag Create a short document describing your

collection & info. needed to understand it

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Key Points of a Good Scope Statement• Collection builder describes who they are

Who is the person or organization (contact info too) What is the purpose of the organization

• Collection purpose and goals What is the purpose, goal or theme (overarching) Who is the intended audience How does collection fit with DLESE scope

• Collection policy How are resources chosen and what is their granularity What types of materials are included

• Terms of use Who owns the resources and metadata

• Quality assurance and persistence How are metadata records produced and maintained

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Questions to Initiate Collection Building

• Is the collection being newly created or does it already exist?

• Does the collection consist of learning resources or is it reviews of learning resources? Or news and opportunities?

• Does the collection have existing metadata?

• Do collection documents articulate what gets in and what doesn’t and how?

• What granularity will the collection have?

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Existing Collection Scenarios in DLESE

• Group of educators - gathers resources around a theme (DWEL, EET); uses DCS

• Single educator - makes their materials available (EMVC, AVC); uses DCS or cataloging template

• Organization - makes an existing repository available (NASA, NAP); uses metadata translation services

• Project - reviews or annotates resources (CRS, JESSE); uses own systems

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Collection Building Methods

• DCS (DLESE Collection System) Provides a user interface to generate metadata

and manage/search a collection

• Template or Own System Use a DLESE XML template as a guide to create

own metadata records using any method Do own collection management

• Translation Programmatically map existing metadata fields to

DLESE metadata fields Do own collection management

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Digital Water Education Library (DWEL)

• Collection builders: K-12 & informal educators

• Audience: K-12 & informal educational settings

• Focus: water in the Earth system

• How: gather 3rd party resources by distributed teams of educators

• DLESE status: reviewed collection

• Size: 380 resources

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DWEL Strategy for Defining Scope

• Concept webs developed for topical campaigns

Groundwater Surface water Oceans Water in the atmosphere Water use

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DWEL Collection Building Strategy

• Divided into grade-level groups

• Selected (voted on) the concepts most relevant to each grade-level group

• Used targeted resource gathering

• Searched web and other sources for exemplary learning objects

• Conducted structured & robust reviews

• Cataloged resources using skilled catalogers

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DWEL Work Hub

• Tracks workflows

• Organizes concepts,resources gathered

• Facilitates reviews

• Displays events &deliverables

• Catalogs using DCS

http://129.82.204.180/dwel/workhub.html

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Collection Accessioning Requirements

• Be within DLESE scope

• Have a scope statement

• Complete required metadata (afternoon)

• Meet or exceed resource quality and metadata quality guidelines (show in guide)

• Get records to DLESE (afternoon)

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DLESE Reviewed Collection (DRC)

• Meets collections accessioning criteria and documents a process for ensuring:

1. Scientific accuracy2. Importance or significance3. Pedagogical effectiveness4. Completeness of documentation5. Ease of use for teachers and learners6. Inspirational or motivational for learners7. Robustness as a digital resource

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Lessons Learned in Collection Building

• Ensure resources are within scope

• Presentation of the resource is just as important as the content

Educational context is understood Access to data/other materials works

• Metadata & resource quality are equally important

• Start with a small group of resources and metadata records; then build strategically

• Cataloging takes time so appropriate resource selection is critical

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Summary - Part 1

• Scope statements are the foundation of a collection

• Collection building methods differ

• Become familiar with the Collection Builder’s Guide

• Complete New Collection Survey

• Questions?

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Build & Contribute Collection Process1. Is the collection theme within DLESE scope

2. Determine type and format of collection

3. Understand collection policies

4. Create a scope statement

• Determine collection building strategy

• Determine collection selection criteria

5. Create metadata records (catalog resources)

6. Send metadata records to DLESE

7. Approval – Collections Accessioning Taskforce

8. Maintain the collection Part 1

Part 2

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Review of Part 1: Starting a Collection

• Kind of collection: Web resources or annotations Materials (lesson plans, images etc.)

• Scope statement: Collection purpose Selection criteria, contact info

• Collection building strategy: Who decides what gets in and how Who catalogs; who does quality assurance

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Part 2: Technical Aspects of Collection Building

• Collection types: Resource, annotation, news and opps

• Metadata formats: ADN, collection, annotation, news-opps

• Creating metadata records: Required fields & controlled vocabularies Cataloging best practices

• Sending metadata records to DLESE: OAI, email, FTP, hosted DCS instances

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DLESE Collection Types

Type of resource materials

Collection type

Metadata format

•Web-based educational resources•Datasets•Pedagogical materials•Research materials (articles)•Images, graphics, photos

Resource ADN

•Comments, reviews, annotations•Educational standards•Teaching tips•Additional content

Annotation Annotation

•Time-sensitive announcements•Fellowships, grants, jobs•Workshops, conferences News/Opps News/Opps

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Metadata Purpose & Principles

• Describe resources in a structured & consistent

• Help users find resources efficiently and understand their scope

• Metadata Principles: Required metadata (information that all

records contain)

Controlled vocabularies (terms used are the same and well defined)

Consistent cataloging

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DLESE Required Metadata

• ADN • News and Opportunities• Annotation

• Each framework has required metadata

• Will cover ADN required metadata

• Attend consult session to see required metadata for News-Opps or Annotation

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• Title - the name of the resource

• URL - the URL to an online resource

• Description - a narrative describing the content/purpose

• Subject - general topic areas that the resource is about

• Technical reqs - browser or platform requirements

• Resource type - type of educational resource (lab, photo)

• Audience - grade range of the resource

• Copyright - copyright statement

• Cost - yes/no/unknown cost to use or access resource

• Resource creator - author or publisher information

• Resource cataloger - cataloger information

DLESE Required Metadata - ADN Format(Cataloger Provided)

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DLESE Required Metadata - ADN Format

• Language - of the resource and metadata

• Copyright of the metadata - ownership of the metadata

• Terms of use - how the metadata may be used

• Metadata framework - catalog scheme (e.g. ADN)

• Creation date - creation date of metadata record

• Accession date - the accession date of the item in to the collection builder's collection

• Catalog name and number - name of collection and an id number for the metadata record like a library call #

• Record status - status of the metadata record within a collection (e.g.accessioned, working)

(Administrative)

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Methods for Creating Metadata - the how

All metadata records are XML files

• DCS (DLESE Collection System): Exploration activity

• Template or Own System: See sample record and complete required

metadata fields

• Translation: Talk to Katy

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Cataloging Activity (DCS demo)

• Goal: Explore generating metadata via the

DLESE Collection System (DCS)

• Directions: Go to http://dcs.dlese.org/preview

Explore controlled vocabularies Explore required metadata Explore validating metadata

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Cataloging Best Practices

• Tips about what to do and not do when creating metadata for DLESE

• Each field has examples

• Fields may provide additional tips in special situations

• Controlled vocabularies are defined too

• See example for title (in guide)

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DLESE Controlled Vocabularies

• To provide consistent search results

• Aid users in browsing the library

• Aids DLESE in assessing library content

• Each metadata framework has their own

• Used in the required ADN fields of:

Subject, resource type, grade range, cost Technical reqs, language, record status

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How to get records to DLESE

• OAI-PMH: A protocol for metadata harvesting by the Open Archives Initiative (DLESE has software to support it -See it at the Share Fair)

• Email: Send a zip or tar file of metadata records to support@dlese.org

• Ftp: Can send anonymously to DLESE; talk to Katy

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Collections Accessioning/Approval Process

• Ensures alignment to DLESE collection policies and guidelines

• Reviews scope statement to determine DLESE appropriateness

• Examines resources, metadata & collection reports to judge overall vitality

• Corresponds directly with collection builder in regards to approval

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Maintaining collections

• DLESE checks active collections: URL link checking Improper XML encoding Duplicates within a collection Required metadata Presence of new records in tar/zip files Resources are still within DLESE scope

• DLESE notifies collection builder and the collection builder is responsible for the actual updates and changes

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Tips for Collection Builders

• Perform internal and ongoing quality assurance and technical checks

• Update and respond to maintenance requests

• Involve the DPC early because technically there is a lot for a collection builder to do

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Questionnaire for DLESE

• Do you plan to create a DLESE collection?

• Do you have enough information to start collection work?

• What collection support or training do you anticipate needing?

• Complete New Collection Survey

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Contacts

• Email: support@dlese.org

• Web: http://www.dlese.org/Metadata

• ShareFair: See collection building table

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Definitions (1)• Metadata - structured descriptive information

about resources (e.g. info in a card catalog)

• Metadata Standard - a representation that is developed & available from a standards body or metadata organization (e.g Dublin Core)

• Metadata Framework - a representation that may or may not be based on or derived from a standard by a standards body (e.g. collection, annotation)

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Definitions (2)

• Resource - actual content - web based learning material, annotations, reviews, data, imagery, audio clips, code etc.

• Record - an XML file containing metadata describing a resource

• Collection - a group of metadata records organized around a theme

• Annotation - more content / metadata appropriate to associate with a resource

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Definitions (3)

• Schema - XML schema files (code) of the metadata representation

• Metadata Format - the metadata representation the XML metadata files are using (e.g. ADN, IMS, Dublin Core)

• Harvest - methods to get metadata files