e-learning standards

A lot of the most exciting work happening in metadata today is in the library sphere. The huge amount of structured metadata held in the library catalogues of the world is an obvious potential source of Linked Open Data, just waiting to be freed. One obstacle is mobilising the library community behind such efforts.
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The universe consists of objects having various qualities and standing in various relations.
-Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, Principia Mathematica (1911-13).

The world is everything that is the case.
What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
The thought is the significant proposition.
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)

Derek Zoolander: Why do you hate models, Matilda?
Matilda Jeffries: Honestly?
Hansel: Yes.
Matilda: I think they’re vain, stupid, and incredibly self-centered.
Hansel: I totally agree with you. But how do you feel about male models?
-Ben Stiller, Christine Taylor, Owen Wilson, Zoolander (2001)

Models are hot right now in metadata circles.
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The DET Learning Resource Metadata (DETLRM) application profile is the NSW Department of Education and Training’s customisation of the international Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standard. It has been successfully used as the description standard for the department’s digital learning resources since 2005, when it was developed by the then newly-formed Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI) in consultation with stakeholders from schools and TAFE units. It underpins resource discovery on the department’s gateway to learning resources, the Teaching and Learning exchange (TaLe).

As part of the redesign of the CLI website, the DETLRM documentation has been updated and given a new home on the Elearning standards page.
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I first remember hearing about Dublin Core (DC) at a one-day seminar for librarians on metadata at the State Library of NSW in 1997. In those days DC could be pretty much explained in twenty minutes or less. Sure, there was a session by Warwick Cathro titled Metadata: complexity or simplicity, but — to the cataloguers in the room at least — it all seemed pretty simple in comparison to traditional cataloguing. In fact, too simple. I remember several cataloguers grumbling at what they saw as the dumbing down of standards (not long after, Michael Gorman famously dismissed metadata as “cataloguing practiced by ill-informed men”).
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The metadata planets seemed to have aligned in recent months and there has been standards activity on several fronts. Sarah Currier’s paper from a couple of years back, Metadata for Learning Resources: An Update on Standards Activity for 2008, gives a good background to the current environment.
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