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Contrairement à l'opinion dominante, les nouvelles technologies n'ont pas toujours un impact positif sur la qualité des métadonnées dans le secteur culturel. Après dix ans d'expérience avec les projets de numérisation dans nos musées, bibliothèques et archives, une réflexion critique se montre plus que jamais nécessaire pour évaluer à quelles conditions ce genre de projets d'informatisation peuvent offrir une valeur ajoutée pour la documentation de notre patrimoine culturel. Cette réflexion se base, entre autres, sur un ensemble de case studies représentatifs dans un contexte international. A cette fin, nous présenterons et définirons un cadre méthodologique et conceptuel original concernant l'impact des technologies sur la qualité des métadonnées. Sur cette base, nous proposons et expérimentons trois approches opérationnelles novatrices en vue d'améliorer la qualité des systèmes d'information déployés dans le secteur culturel.

Denne hovedfagsavhandlingen setter fokus på hvordan metadata brukes i et integrert brukersystem i en bedrift. I et informasjonsrom er informasjonsressurser fra ulike medier intergrert, og en trenger et felles “bindeledd” for å støtte bedre gjenfinning og tilgang til informasjon i informasjonsrommet. Problemet er ofte at de ulike medier bruker ulike format for beskrivelse av sine informasjonsressurser, noe som vanskeliggjør interoperabilitet mellom de ulike medier. Dersom de ulike medier kan bruke samme metadataformat til å beskrive sine informasjonsressurser, vil det bedre interoperabiliteten. Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DC) er et format utviklet med tanke på publisering av informasjonsressuser via Intranett og Internett. Det er DC som er bindeleddet i det virtuelle informasjonsrommet som denne avhandlingen tar utgangspunkt i. Sentralt i denne avhandlingen står vurderingen av hvordan Adresseavisens indekseringsbehov kan tilfredsstilles i DC for informasjonsressurser som artikler, bilder/illustrasjoner og film. Forslag til et kjerneformat for Adresseavisens informasjonsressurser, med medieavhengige variasjoner legges frem. Dette er informasjonsressurser hvor avis er brukskontekst. Forslaget som fremlegges imøtekommer resultater fra brukerundersøkelsen, og opplysninger og observasjon av hvordan indekseringsformatene allerede benytter brukes. Undersøkelsen har resultert i følgende funn: • De fleste brukere velger fritekstsøk fremfor metadatasøk • Opplæring virker inn på bruk av metadata • Arbeidsoppgaver/Informasjonsbehov påvirker bruk av metadata • Erfaring med databasesystemet og hyppighet i søk i databasen kan påvirke bruk av metadata • Noen metadataelement er mer bedre egnet for søk enn andre. Undersøkelsene gir også anbefalinger som kan være nyttige ved navngivning av metadata. Følgende fremgår av undersøkelsen: • Forkortelser i navngivning av metadata bør unngås for å gjøre dem mer selvforklarende • Tvetydige begreper i navngivning av metadata gjør dem mindre intuitive i forhold til forståelse for innhold Undersøkelsen er presentert med stolpediagram og tabeller, som er metoder som kan brukes til kvalitative analyser.

Web forms (eForms) and databases are at present widely used for data handling in most web applications. While eForms are used for data gathering and display, databases are used for data storage. To connect and interface an eForm to a database, an eForm processor is used. The eForm processor supports data saving, retrieval, update, and delete. In most web applications, eForms, eForm processors, and databases are designed and implemented separately. This leads to two main challenges: One, complexity in the manipulation of eForms and their associated database; and two, difficulty in the reproduction and reuse of existing eForms.<p> To address the above-identified challenges, this thesis proposes the use of metadata in the creation and implementation of both eForms and their associated databases. Our approach comprises a two-part solution: One, modeling domains metadata and two, creating a tool, called Delk eForm Creator. To model domain metadata, Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS) was used. However, to analyse the tools requirement, Putting Usability First (PUF) approach was used.<p> In order to demonstrate the applicability of our solution approach, Delk eForm Creator was used to create a set of Metadata and three specific eForms based on a generic eForm. The created eForms were rendered in different web browsers and used to enter data into the associated databases. It was observed that Delk eForm Creator successfully generated a Generic eForm based on the Domain Metadata. Moreover, three different Specific eForms were successfully generated based on one Generic eForm, thereby leading to a reusable Generic eForm.<p> We conclude that the metadata-based approach of implementing eForms, as proposed in this thesis, is a viable technique to creating eForms and their associated databases. The approach enables users to easily create, maintain, and reuse eForms and databases.

Web forms (eForms) and databases are at present widely used for data handling in most web applications. While eForms are used for data gathering and display, databases are used for data storage. To connect and interface an eForm to a database, an eForm processor is used. The eForm processor supports data saving, retrieval, update, and delete. In most web applications, eForms, eForm processors, and databases are designed and implemented separately. This leads to two main challenges: One, complexity in the manipulation of eForms and their associated database; and two, difficulty in the reproduction and reuse of existing eForms.<p> To address the above-identified challenges, this thesis proposes the use of metadata in the creation and implementation of both eForms and their associated databases. Our approach comprises a two-part solution: One, modeling domains metadata and two, creating a tool, called Delk eForm Creator. To model domain metadata, Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS) was used. However, to analyse the tools requirement, Putting Usability First (PUF) approach was used.<p> In order to demonstrate the applicability of our solution approach, Delk eForm Creator was used to create a set of Metadata and three specific eForms based on a generic eForm. The created eForms were rendered in different web browsers and used to enter data into the associated databases. It was observed that Delk eForm Creator successfully generated a Generic eForm based on the Domain Metadata. Moreover, three different Specific eForms were successfully generated based on one Generic eForm, thereby leading to a reusable Generic eForm.<p> We conclude that the metadata-based approach of implementing eForms, as proposed in this thesis, is a viable technique to creating eForms and their associated databases. The approach enables users to easily create, maintain, and reuse eForms and databases.

National Science Digital Library (NSDL) projects were briefly surveyed to find out if they were submitting metadata records to OCLC. The responses of the projects are given in this report. iLumina is the only library sending item-level records for all resources to both NSDL and OCLC; although, it appears that the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues and the Animal Diversity Web have entered a single Collection Record into OCLC.

The metadata elements needed to allow specialist users to find, identify, select, and obtain the resources they need and to navigate the web of relationships among them do not necessarily match the elements and rules for bibliographic cataloging of materials traditionally held by libraries. This paper will draw on experience gathering together metadata from heterogeneous sources for American Memory, particularly for the collections digitized and cataloged at other institutions through the LC/Ameritech competition. It will also reflect on several initiatives to develop rich structured metadata schemes for specific domains and others to find simple approaches to support resource discovery across domains. Trends and commonalities will be identified and influences among metadata schemes highlighted.

A study of the properties of virtual laboratories to design interactivity metrics for an engineering digital library are described. An Interactive Checklist to help select the best resources for educational context and describe them objectively is demonstrated. Virtual laboratories are one important genre of interactive multimedia objects. Interactivities are complex objects and new digital genres or forms, with no print equivalent. A prototypical example of an interactive is the 3-d simulation virtual laboratory in GROW (Budhu & Coleman, 2002). This type of virtual laboratory provides links to prerequisite material, supplementary readings, uses multimedia formats, and different types of user interaction to motivate, engage, challenge, facilitate, and test learning. It has conceptual and physical components that can be objectively identified on which metrics for interactivity can be developed. Interactivity type and interactivity level are elements for resource description in educational metadata frameworks such as the IEEE LOM (2004). However, interactivity is hard to describe in a way that is useful as an access point or for making relevancy choices about resources in educational tasks such as teaching and learning and hence the need for objective measures. The currently available vocabularies for interactivity type are inadequate and include: active, expositive, mixed, and undefined. Similarly the values for interactivity level are equally limited and ambiguous: very low, low, medium, high, very high. The Interactive Checklist, tested with GROW, allows the metadata creator and the collection developer to easily and quantitatively measure interactivity and assign the corresponding level to learning resources of all types.

Gives step by step instructions to Publish a ISIS (WINISIS or CDS/ISIS) database in Greenstone Digital Library software. The core of the methodology is to 1) print entire database to a file; 2) chop the file to get single html file per record; 3) use of HTML META tags to generate metadata and 4) Creating a digital library by using Greenstone Digital Library Software(GSDL). The GSDL can be used for providing access to this collection by server or from CDROM.

Access to educational material has become an important issue for many stakeholders and the focus of many projects worldwide. Resource discovery in many educational gateways is usually based on metadata and this is the area of many important developments. Resource metadata has a central role in the management of educational material and as a result there are several important metadata standards in use in the educational domain. One of the most widely used general metadata standards for learning material is the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set. The application of this general purpose, metadata standard for complex and heterogeneous educational material is not straightforward. This paper will give an overview of some practical issues and necessary steps in deploying Dublin Core based on the LITC experience in EASEL (Educators Access to Services in the Electronic Landscape)project.