Reminder: Call for review of new metadata documents

Tue Mar 25 02:16:52 UTC 2008

Dear implementers,

This is a reminder that we have one week left in the review period for the
documents listed in the attached message.    We are anxiously awaiting your
feedback!

So far we have gotten just one comment, namely, from Jeff Good asking about
the possibility of using a solution like the following for isTranscriptOf
and hasTranscript:

<dc:relation xsi:type="olac:lingrelations" olac:code="isTranscriptOf">

Such a solution would be possible, but since isTranscriptOf is analogous to
isVersionOf (and the other refinements of dc:relation), it really should be
a new element (in the olac namespace) that is defined as a refinement of
dc:relation, which would also enable it to take the encoding schemes that
dc:relations take, e.g.

<olac:isTranscriptOf xsi:type="dcterms:URI">

This "proper" solution takes us beyond conformance to the current XML
schema for qualified Dublin Core, so our thinking is that we don't want to
implement a change like that, but rather wait for the revision of the XML
schema for qualified DC (due out this year) that will support such
extensions. We are also not keen to go to all the work of defining and
implementing the olac:lingrelations extension (which includes writing a
document and putting it through the stages of the review process) for a
short-lived temporary solution. Thus, we have these new refinements on the
list of changes for version 2.0 of our metadata format.

-Gary

             Gary Simons                                                   
             <gary_simons at SIL.                                             
             ORG>                                                       To 
             Sent by: OLAC             OLAC-IMPLEMENTERS at LISTSERV.LINGUIST 
             Implementers List         LIST.ORG                            
             <OLAC-IMPLEMENTER                                          cc 
             S at LISTSERV.LINGUI                                             
             STLIST.ORG>                                           Subject 
                                       Call for review of new metadata     
                                       documents                           
             03/05/2008 10:35                                              
             PM                                                            

             Please respond to                                             
               Open Language                                               
                 Archives                                                  
                 Community                                                 
             Implementers List                                             
             <OLAC-IMPLEMENTER                                             
             S at LISTSERV.LINGUI                                             
                STLIST.ORG>                                                

Dear implementers,

Many of you also subscribe to the OLAC-GENERAL list and so have gotten the
general announcement about this call for review for new metadata documents.
Those of you who have implemented an OLAC data provider are directly
affected since this new work focuses on ways of improving the quality of
the
metadata in our implementations.  In this message we repeat the general
announcement for the benefit of those not subscribed to OLAC-GENERAL, and
then we supply further information that is relevant to you as implementers.

Six months ago the US National Science Foundation awarded funding for a
project named "OLAC: Accessing the World's Language Resources" which aims
to
greatly improve access to language resources for linguists and the broader
communities of interest. If you are interested in learning more about the
project, you may visit the project home page at:

   http://olac.wiki.sourceforge.net/

In the first phase of the project we are focusing on improving metadata
quality as a prerequisite to improving the quality of search.  To that end
we have drafted some new documents that can serve as a basis for improving
and measuring metadata quality within our community:

   Best Practice Recommendations for Language Resource Description
   http://www.language-archives.org/REC/bpr.html

   OLAC Metadata Usage Guidelines
   http://www.language-archives.org/NOTE/usage.html

   OLAC Metadata Quality Metrics
   http://www.language-archives.org/NOTE/metrics.html

These documents have been reviewed in Draft status by the Metadata Working
Group. After significant revision, they are now promoted to Proposed status
and are thus ready for review by the entire community. In keeping with the
OLAC Process standard, we hereby make a formal call for review. The review
period will end on MARCH 31, at which point all of the comments that have
been received will be processed to create revised versions of the
documents.
You may submit comments by simply replying to this message. <End of general
announcement>

The OLAC Metadata Standard that you followed in implementing your
repository
defines the constraints on validity for a metadata record, but it gives no
advice about what a high quality metadata record is like. The first two
documents listed above address this issue.  Then, in keeping with the OLAC
core value of "Peer Review", we want to implement a service that will
measure conformance to the recommendations that can be automatically tested
for. That is the issue addressed by the third document listed above.

We have implemented the proposed Metadata Quality Score so that you can see
the implications for your current metadata. (As the documents are revised
to
express community consensus, the implementation of the metrics will be
updated to match.) The metadata quality analysis as currently implemented
is
accessible from a test version of the Participating Archives page. The site
has no links to this test page; it is accessed by entering this URL in a
browser:

   http://www.language-archives.org/archives-new.php

Follow the "Sample Record" link for your archive to see the quality score
for the sample record named in your Identify response, along with comments
on what can be done to improve the score. Follow the "Metrics" link to see
the average quality score for the records you are currently providing.
Kudos to the Audio Archive of Linguistic Fieldwork (Berkeley), Centre de
Ressources pour la Description de l'Oral (CRDO), and the CHILDES Data
Repository who are already getting scores around 8 or higher.  The rest of
us have room for significant improvement!

Eventually, this new Participating Archives page will replace the one that
is currently accessed from the ARCHIVES link in the OLAC site banner.
However, this will not happen right away. After the current round of review
and any subsequent revisions, the documents will be put to the OLAC
Council,
who will check the revised documents and promote them to Candidate status
when they feel they are ready. Next we will issue a call for implementation
and give at least one month for implementer feedback. Based on that
feedback, final revisions will be made to the satisfaction of the Council
who will then grant Adopted status.  The new Participating Archives page
will not replace the current one until the new guidelines and metrics are
adopted.

This discussion of process is to let you know that you will probably want
to
plan to update the implementation of your metadata repository some time
within the next few months. When these new metadata recommendations and
usage guidelines are officially adopted, the public will be able to see the
metrics scores for your repository. In the meantime, it is just other
implementers who are seeing them. You need not wait until the Candidate
call
for implementation to begin implementing changes.  As soon as your updated
repository is harvested, you will see the metrics change.

Again, the review period will end on MARCH 31, at which point all of the
comments that have been received will be processed to create revised
versions of the documents. You may submit comments by replying to the list
(and potentially entering into discussion with other implementers) or by
mailing them to <olac_project at gial.edu>. That account is handled by Debbie
Chang, a Masters candidate at the Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics
who is the Research Assistant for our project.  She will compile a list of
all the comments (whether submitted to the list or to the project account),
which the document editors will then be asked to respond to. That response
will come after the review period closes.

With a solid foundation based on quality metadata, our grant project will
be
able to build improved search services and to expand coverage by attracting
more participating archives and by implementing gateways to other
aggregators.  We are grateful for your participation in this venture and
trust that you share our excitement about its potential.

Best wishes,
Gary & Steven

_______
Steven Bird, University of Melbourne and University of Pennsylvania
Gary Simons, SIL International and GIAL
OLAC Coordinators (www.language-archives.org)