Contact point:
Emma Tonkin ( )
UKOLN, University of Bath, UK
  

Technical Contact Points:
Emma Tonkin ( )
  

Type of Software:
PROTOTYPE
   

Descriptive Keywords:
Metadata schema registry. Application profile and schema development
  

Potential Use and Applications:
Metadata schema registries enable the publication, navigation and sharing of information about metadata. The IEMSR will act as the primary source for authoritative information about metadata schemas recommended by the JISC IE Standards framework, providing the JISC IE with a single point of referral for recommended schemas.
  

General Description:
The IEMSR (Information Environment Metadata Schema Registry) project aims to progress development of a metadata schema registry as a shared service within the JISC Information Environment. Metadata schema registries enable the publication, navigation and sharing of information about metadata. The IEMSR project is building on the work of previous projects, which have explored provision of information about metadata at the level of data elements, element sets or application profiles. The Registry will act as the primary source for authoritative information about metadata schemas recommended by the JISC IE Standards framework, providing the JISC IE with a single point of referral for recommended schemas.
  
The Registry project is scoped to target the UK education community where both Dublin Core (DC) and IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standards are used to build schemas. It will allow various initiatives within the JISC IE to publish "application profiles" of these standards in a registry, making them available to others. This provides a concrete way of encouraging sensible uniformity alongside necessary divergence.
  

Technical Description:
The IEMSR itself is a web-based service that offers a SPARQL interface for access to the data, stored internally in RDF format. IEMSR development includes both this backend service, a web-based system to permit searching and browsing of data already placed in the registry, and a cross-platform Java-based client designed to support and speed up the process of application profile and metadata profile design. As the API is built around W3C standards, the data within the registry can be extracted, transformed and reused using standard technologies such as XML style sheets.
  
The data within the system is designed to support both machine-to-machine (m2m) access without compromising reusability and the ability to search and browse the data.
  

Required User Skills:
Potential users of the client software and Web-based system are welcome, although the system remains in development at the present time, meaning that users should liaise with project management in the first instance. Reuse of data via the machine-to-machine backend service will require an understanding of SPARQL and XML transforms as of the present time.
  

Pre-Requisites for Installation:
The IEMSR backend software requires a Unix or compatible system with a recent Perl installation. The web-based system requires Java and Apache Tomcat for installation, and can be browsed using a standard web browser such as Firefox. The client requires a Java runtime environment. No special requirements exist in terms of hardware; the client is cross-platform.
   

Conditions of Use:
Contact the authors.