CIDOC 2000
Using GEM Metadata to Access Education Resources
Nancy Virgil MorganCoordinator
CIDOC 2000
Presentation Outline
• About GEM
• Dublin Core & GEM Metadata
• GEM Architecture and Tools
• 2000 Priorities
CIDOC 2000
GEM’s Mission
Consortium effort to improve
access to uncataloged collections
of educational materials on non-
profit, commercial, and
government Internet sites.
CIDOC 2000
Sponsors
U.S. Department of Education
ERIC Clearinghouse on
Information & Technology
Syracuse University
School of Information Studies
CIDOC 2000
Timeline
Nov ‘96
Stakeholders Meeting
June ‘97
PresentationU.S. Dept. of Ed.
Mar. ‘00
The Gateway
online
Aug ‘00
12,358records
Jan ‘98
200Consortium
members
CIDOC 2000
As of July 31, 2000
CIDOC 2000
As of July 31, 2000
http://www.thegateway.org
CIDOC 2000
GEM Metadata Profile
CIDOC 2000
Metadata
• Structured information that describes, manages, and organizes resources
– card catalog describes, manages, organizes library resources
– GEM record describes, manages, organizes Internet education resources
CIDOC 2000
Open Standard:Dublin Core
• Coverage
• Creator
• Date
• Description
• Format
• Identifier
• Language
• Other Contributor
• Publisher
• Relation
• Resource Type
• Rights
• Source
• Subject
• Title
CIDOC 2000
GEM Elements
• Audience• Duration• Essential Resources• Grade Level• Pedagogy• Quality Indicators• Academic Standards• Cataloging Agency
CIDOC 2000
GEM Controlled Vocabularies
• Subject• Resource Type• Pedagogy• Audience• Grade/Education Level• Format
CIDOC 2000
Creating GEMMetadata
CIDOC 2000
Creating GEM Metadata
• GEMCat Cataloging Module: create individual metadata records.
• Database Collections: write script/program/query to output GEM records
• Future: researching the use of Natural Language Processing to automate metadata creation.
CIDOC 2000
GEM Architecture and Tools
CIDOC 2000
Resources
SeparateMetadata
EmbeddedMetadata
GEMCat
GEM Cataloged Resources
edit
catalog
Creating/Editing Metadata
CIDOC 2000
SeparateMetadata
EmbeddedMetadata
HARVEST
local harvest
web harvest
Index files
Files from DB driven collections
Harvest Process
CIDOC 2000
SeparateMetadata
EmbeddedMetadata
HARVEST
local harvest
web harvest
Index files
Files from DB driven collections
Full Site Index(The
Gateway)
Harvest Process
CIDOC 2000
Why use Metadata?
• Lack of precision in web searching
• Time-consuming for user to determine quality, authority
CIDOC 2000
Why use Metadata?
Economics of traditional cataloging
• Internet resources move,disappear
• Users “one click away” from the resource
CIDOC 2000
Why use Metadata?
• Establishes a consistent means to search across websites while maintaining your autonomy
• Brings users to your site
• The Gateway searches 12,000 resources across 150 websites.
CIDOC 2000
Why use Metadata?
Customized interfaces to the same metadata catalog
www.thegateway.org
www.nea.org/gem
education.go.com
www.teachers-connect.net/
CIDOC 2000
Why use Metadata?
Allows organizations to create own “Gateways”:
• CHIN (Canadian Heritage Information Network)
• MCI Marco Polo Project
– 6 partner sites
CIDOC 2000
Why use Metadata?
• National Institute for Literacy – LINCS– Network of adult literacy websites
• NASA –Office of Space Science– Distributed NASA educational
materials
CIDOC 2000
2000 Priorities
• Academic Standards• Vocabulary Registries • Higher and Adult Education• Working Groups• Continued growth - membership,
content, users