Showing papers on "Meta Data Services published in 2007"

Tracking actual usage : the attention metadata approach

Abstract: The information overload in learning and teaching scenarios is a main hindering factor for efficient and effective learning. New methods are needed to help teachers and students in dealing with the vast amount of available information and learning material. Our approach aims to utilize contextualized attention metadata to capture behavioural information of users in learning contexts that can be used to deal with the information overload in user centric ways. We introduce a schema and framework for capturing and managing such contextualized attention metadata in this paper. Schema and framework are designed to enable collecting and merging observations about the attention users give to content and their contexts. The contextualized attention metadata schema enables the correlation of the observations, thus reflects the relationships that exists between the user, her context and the content she works with. We illustrate with a simple demo application how contextualized attention metadata can be collected from several tools, the merging of the data streams into a repository and finally the correlation of the data.

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set

Abstract: This document defines fifteen metadata elements for resource description in a cross-disciplinary information environment. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

Smart integration engine and metadata-oriented architecture for automatic eii and business integration

Abstract: The present invention discloses systems and methods for automating the EII, using a smart integration engine based on metadata. On-line execution (i.e. data access, retrieval, or update) is automated by integrating heterogeneous data sources via a centralized smart engine based on metadata of all data sources managed in a metadata repository. The data-source assets are mapped to business metadata (terminology) giving programmers the ability to use business terms, and overcome technical terms. IT departments can use the business-level terms for easy and fast programming of all services “at the business level”. The integration is performed by the engine (via pre-configuration) automatically, dynamically, and on-line, regardless of topology or technology changes, without user or administrator intervention. MDOA is a high-level concept in which the metadata maps the technical low-level terms to business high-level terms. MDOA is used for seamless integration of a fully-distributed organization with many data sources and technologies.

Intensional associations between data and metadata

Abstract: There is a growing need to associate a variety of metadata with the underlying data, but a simple, elegant approach to uniformly model and query both the data and the metadata has been elusive. In this paper, we argue that (1) the relational model augmented with queries as data values is a natural way to uniformly model data, arbitrary metadata and their associations, and (2) relational queries with a join mechanism augmented to permit matching of query result relations, instead of only atomic values, is an elegant way to uniformly query across data and metadata. We describe the architecture of a system we have prototyped for this purpose, demonstrate the generality of our approach and evaluate the performance of the system, in comparison with previous proposals for metadata management.

Integrating Dublin Core metadata for cultural heritage collections using ontologies

Abstract: Metadata interoperability is an active research area, especially for cultural heritage collections, which consist of heterogeneous objects described by a variety of metadata schemas. In this paper we propose an ontology-based metadata interoperability approach, which exploits, in an optimal way, the semantics of metadata schemas. In particular, we propose the use of CIDOC/CRM ontology as a mediating schema and present a methodology for mapping DC Type Vocabulary to CIDOC/CRM, demonstrating a real-world effort for ontology-based metadata integration.

Does data warehouse end-user metadata add value?

Abstract: Many data warehouses are currently underutilized by managers and knowledge workers. Can high-quality end-user metadata help to increase levels of adoption and use?

Batch management of metadata in a business intelligence architecture

Abstract: A metadata management system is described for a business intelligence architecture having a metadata repository for content that defines a user environment of the business intelligence architecture. The metadata management system includes a user interface generator to display information regarding a plurality of objects in the metadata repository and to facilitate selection of a group of the plurality of objects, a content editor to evaluate the content stored in the metadata repository for each object of the selected group and to modify in a batch job the content for each object of the selected group for storage of the modified content in the metadata repository, and a communication manager to issue instructions for the storage of the modified content in the metadata repository, the instructions being configured in accordance with a communication protocol of the business intelligence architecture utilized to control the metadata repository.

Digital media metadata management

Abstract: Network-side and client-side systems and techniques for managing metadata items describing digital media content available from a number of digital media content sources are described. Disparate metadata items are collected and transcribed based on a common format. The common format facilitates computerized cataloging, searching, and presentation of relevant metadata and/or digital content via a wide variety of client-side devices. The common format includes: a portion for storing descriptive data derived from the original metadata items; a portion for storing data specific to the digital media content source supplying the original metadata; and a services specifier portion used for accessing specific digital media content. The common format may be used to identify relationships between transcribed items of metadata based on virtually unlimited selection criteria, and to facilitate the creation and presentation to users of data sets of related metadata and/or digital media content.

Apparatus and method of customizable model import and export to and from XML schema formats

Abstract: In one embodiment the present invention includes a computer-implemented method of converting first metadata to second metadata using a mapping and custom exits. The metadata is at the M1 level and the mapping is generated based on information at the M2 level. The custom exits provide programmable mapping rules in addition to the mapping. In this manner, metadata created in one modeling environment may be used in another modeling environment.

Authors vs. readers: a comparative study of document metadata and content in the www

Abstract: Collaborative tagging describes the process by which many users add metadata in the form of unstructured keywords to shared content. The recent practical success of web services with such a tagging component like Flickr or del.icio.us has provided a plethora of user-supplied metadata about web content for everyone to leverage.In this paper, we conduct a quantitative and qualitative analysis of metadata and information provided by the authors and publishers of web documents compared with metadata supplied by end users for the same content. Our study is based on a random sample of 100,000 web documents from the Open Directory, for which we examined the original documents from the World Wide Web in addition to data retrieved from the social bookmarking service del.icio.us, the content rating system ICRA, and the search engine Google. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to compare user tags with the metadata and actual content of documents in the WWW on a larger scale and to integrate document popularity information in the observations. The data set of our experiments is freely available for research.

Subject metadata enrichment using statistical topic models

Abstract: Creating a collection of metadata records from disparate and diverse sources often results in uneven, unreliable and variable quality subject metadata. Having uniform, consistent and enriched subject metadata allows users to more easily discover material, browse the collection, and limit keyword search results by subject. We demonstrate how statistical topic models are useful for subject metadata enrichment. We describe some of the challenges of metadata enrichment on a huge scale (10 million metadata records from 700 repositories in the OAIster Digital Library) when the metadata is highly heterogeneous (metadata about images and text, and both cultural heritage material and scientific literature). We show how to improve the quality of the enriched metadata, using both manual and statistical modeling techniques. Finally, we discuss some of the challenges of the production environment, and demonstrate the value of the enriched metadata in a prototype portal.

Method and apparatus for the synchronization and storage of metadata

Abstract: Aspects of the invention described herein provide a method and apparatus for the synchronization of metadata across various metadata repositories. According to the invention, upon synchronization of a local metadata repository and at least one remote metadata repository, metadata values are stored in a local collection or mediator database. The mediator database facilitates conflict resolution across metadata repositories. The invention further provides a repository-specific metadata memory to enable the storage of repository-specific metadata histories to further enhance management and synchronization of the metadata.

Using component metadata to regression test component-based software†

Abstract: Increasingly, modern-day software systems are being built by combining externally-developed software components with application-specific code. For such systems, existing program-analysis-based software engineering techniques may not directly apply, due to lack of information about components. To address this problem, the use of component metadata has been proposed. Component metadata are metadata and metamethods provided with components, that retrieve or calculate information about those components. In particular, two component-metadata-based approaches for regression test selection are described: one using code-based component metadata and the other using specification-based component metadata. The results of empirical studies that illustrate the potential of these techniques to provide savings in re-testing effort are provided. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Managing source annotation metadata

Abstract: A method, system and computer program product for managing source annotation metadata. The metadata management technique may include maintaining a set of metadata, maintaining data/metadata relationships between individual units of the metadata and individual units of the source data, and maintaining metadata/metadata relationships between individual units of the metadata. The metadata/metadata relationships define two or more intersecting search pathways through the metadata that intersect at one or more metadata units belonging to more than one search domain.

Metadata for digital collections of e‐government resources

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a process for developing a metadata element set that will describe e‐government resources in digital collections. The outcome of the process is a metadata schema that reuses as many elements as possible from existing specifications and standards (termed as an e‐government metadata application profile). The use of e‐government metadata is to facilitate the electronic categorization and storage of governmental resources, as well as to enhance users' electronic interactions with the public sector.Design/methodology/approach – The paper extends an initial process presented in the context of the European Standardization Committee CEN/ISSS, proposing four steps for developing the application profile: determine the resources to be described by the metadata, identify the stakeholder groups who will use the metadata, determine the use of metadata for each stakeholder group, and specify the metadata elements corresponding to each use.Findings – The steps of the pr...

Method for verification of data and metadata in a data repository

Abstract: A method for metadata verification of a data repository of a computer system is described comprising accessing a data repository through a data profiler program, querying the data repository for metadata information about the data repository, presenting statistics regarding the metadata information using the profiler, analyzing the metadata information to identify suspect metadata information from the data repository and presenting the suspect metadata information for inspection using the profiler.

Automated template-based metadata extraction architecture

Abstract: This paper describes our efforts to develop a toolset and process for automated metadata extraction from large, diverse, and evolving document collections. A number of federal agencies, universities, laboratories, and companies are placing their collections online and making them searchable via metadata fields such as author, title, and publishing organization. Manually creating metadata for a large collection is an extremely time-consuming task, but is difficult to automate, particularly for collections consisting of documents with diverse layout and structure. Our automated process enables many more documents to be available online than would otherwise have been possible due to time and cost constraints. We describe our architecture and implementation and illustrate the effectiveness of the tool-set by providing experimental results on two major collections DTIC (Defense Technical Information Center) and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

Apparatus and method for merging metadata within a repository

Abstract: A computer readable storage medium includes executable instructions to create a database structure that contains groups of linked data tables to store different types of metadata selected from Business Metadata, Structural Metadata and Operational Metadata. At least two different types of metadata are received. The database structure is populated with the at least two different types of metadata to form composite metadata.

Toward Releasing the Metadata Bottleneck

Abstract: Metadata creation is one of the most expensive components of digital projects. Organizational expertise (the correct structure, syntax, and use of metadata elements) and subject expertise (the appropriate semantic description of a resource’s content for users) are both needed to create a high-quality metadata record. Resource creators are frequently considered good metadata generators. Contributors or subject enthusiasts in a discipline are another population that may be good candidates for metadata creation. In this study, the quality of contributor-supplied metadata is evaluated. Metadata records submitted through a Web form are compared to the final published version of the record. Structural and semantic errors are noted throughout the records evaluated. Overall, semantic quality was good, reflecting subject expertise. The appearance and type of structural errors suggests that improvements in the interface can reduce contributors’ need to have organizational expertise to create high-quality metadata records.

Requirements and Services for Metadata Management

Abstract: Knowledge-intensive applications pose new challenges to metadata management, including distribution, access control, uniformity of access, and evolution in time. This paper identifies general requirements for metadata management and describes a simple model and service that focuses on RDF metadata to address these requirements.

Does topic metadata help with Web search

Abstract: It has been claimed that topic metadata can be used to improve the accuracy of text searches. Here, we test this claim by examining the contribution of metadata to effective searching within Web sites published by a university with a strong commitment to and substantial investment in metadata. The authors use four sets of queries, a total of 463, extracted from the university's official query logs and from the university's site map. The results are clear: The available metadata is of little value in ranking answers to those queries. A follow-up experiment with the Web sites published in a particular government jurisdiction confirms that this conclusion is not specific to the particular university. Examination of the metadata present at the university reveals that, in addition to implementation deficiencies, there are inherent problems in trying to use subject and description metadata to enhance the searchability of Web sites. Our experiments show that link anchor text, which can be regarded as metadata created by others, is much more effective in identifying best answers to queries than other textual evidence. Furthermore, query-independent evidence such as link counts and uniform resource locator (URL) length, unlike subject and description metadata, can substantially improve baseline performance. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Systems, methods and computer products for content-derived metadata

Abstract: Systems, methods and computer products for content-derived (generated) metadata. Exemplary embodiments include a metadata generation method, including receiving a media file, searching the media file for metadata associated with the media file, adding the metadata to a metadata file associated with the media file, searching the media file for media components and adding metadata entries that are associated with the media components to the metadata file.

Information storage medium for storing metadata supporting multiple languages, and systems and methods of processing metadata

Abstract: An information storage medium for storing metadata supporting multiple languages and a method of processing the metadata are provided. The information storage medium is provided to store: contents; and at least one metadata file in which information regarding the contents is recorded in at least one language. The metadata file comprises a plurality of language files in which a plurality of versions of the information regarding the contents written in a plurality of languages are provided, and the languages are identified by the names of the respective language files. The names of the language files may include a language identifier according to an ISO639-2 standard. The information may also include download information regarding a plurality of downloadable metadata files that are downloadable from other storage media. Accordingly, it is possible to provide a user with a plurality of versions of metadata written in one or more languages and selectively download metadata written in a desired language from a remote server into a reproduction apparatus with limited memory resources with reference to a supported language list.

Dynamic Metadata Management for Scalable Stream Processing Systems

Abstract: Adaptive query processing is of utmost importance for the scalability of data stream processing systems due to the long-running queries and fluctuating stream characteristics. An essential prerequisite for adaptive runtime components is the presence of suitable metadata capturing the runtime state. As most of the metadata in such a system gets outdated over time, appropriate update mechanisms are required. Dynamic metadata management deals with the dynamic provision and continuous maintenance of metadata. This paper does not only address the issues in dynamic metadata management such as metadata dependencies and metadata update concepts, but also presents a scalable framework to efficiently manage the diversity of dynamic metadata in todays data stream processing systems. The core of our field-tested metadata framework is a publish-subscribe architecture that enables the system to identify and compute only the currently inquired metadata. This tailored metadata provision is crucial to scalability as maintaining all available metadata at runtime causes significant computational overhead when the number of continuous queries increases.

Unifying Learning Object Repositories in MACE

Abstract: Prause, C., Ternier, S., De Jong, T., Apelt, S., Scholten, M., Wolpers, M., et al. (2007). Unifying Learning Object Repositories in MACE. In D. Massart, J.-N. Colin & F. V. Assche (Eds.). Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Learning Object Discovery & Exchange (LODE'07). September, 18, 2007, Crete, Grece.

Where is the value in metadata

Abstract: Metadata can be defined as structured data about an object that supports some function(s) related to that object described. Thus, the functions enabled by metadata are the key to cost-justifying metadata creation and management efforts. However, the functions of metadata are diverse, and also the kinds of organisations that typically create and use metadata. This results in different possible accounts of the concept of 'metadata value'. This paper explores typical cases of organisations using metadata and then explores how metadata as an organisational asset can be framed in the existing Information Systems (IS) theories.

Metadata challenges in introducing the global ieee learning object metadata (lom) standard in a local environment

Abstract: During the last decades, document sharing has become vastly more available for the general public, with large document collections being made generally available on the internet and inside of organizations on intranets. In addition, each of us has an everincreasing archive of private digital documents. At the same time efforts to enable more efficient document retrieval have only succeeded marginally. This makes finding the right document like looking for a needle in the haystack. Just now it is a bigger haystack. This lack of overview of existing document resources results in large amounts of scarce human resources that are still being used to create similar resources.A key reason to why we are faced with this challenge is that few documents receive a sufficient metadata description in order to enable efficient retrieval. Too often the document metadata is insufficient or even incorrect. Few document creators are aware of describing their documents with metadata. Trained librarians and archivists can assist authors to create and publish metadata, but this is a costly and time-consuming process. Advanced metadata formats, such as the IEEE LOM, enable detailed and precise metadata descriptions. This format is challenging to use and the potential in the format is often not leveraged. Document formats that require such metadata, e.g. SCORM Learning Objects (LOs), are not being used to their potential due to the challenges of creating metadata.This thesis shows how Automatic Metadata Generation (AMG) can stand as a foundation for creation, publishing and discovery of document resources with rich and correct metadata descriptions. This thesis shows how high quality metadata can be created automatically using the documents themselves and contextual data sources. Finally, this thesis shows how metadata descriptions can be used alongside the original document to create SCORM LOs to enable sharing of educational resources with educational metadata descriptions.The main contributions by this thesis are:C1: Establishing an overview of research literature, projects and products using AMG and the quality of their generated metadata.C2: Establishing that AMG efforts can be combined to expand the range of elements and entities that can be generated, but also to increase the quality of generated entities.C3: Establishing that AMG efforts can generate high quality metadata from nonhomogeneous document collections, vastly expanding the practical usefulness of AMG.C4: Establishing that AMG efforts can contribute extensively in promoting sharing of knowledge with the creation of sharable SCORM LOs containing the educational resources themselves and extensive metadata descriptions to enable efficient location and use.