www.jwheatley.ac.uk/mandate improving access to digital resources: a mandate for order mandate:...

www.jwheatley.ac.uk/mandate

Improving access to digital resources: a mandate for order

mandate:managing digital assets in tertiary education

craig green, john wheatley collegejohn robertson, centre for digital library research


The problem Fairly typical educational institutional experience Minutes/ agendas stored in library as single

physical copy No list available to public Overhead to both college and individual for meeting

information requests Learning materials not consistently available

Materials stored in a range of paper-based and electronic formats

Materials stored in variety of locations No college-wide strategy for the development, storage,

retrieval and preservation of such materials Strategy at the discretion of individual curriculum

managers.


The problem Learning materials only available to

learners through teaching staff No way of browsing or searching

information assets Library staff resource insufficient to

process these assets and make them available using traditional means

Insufficient in-house expertise to tackle technical issues at JWC Hence partnership requirement


Critical decisions College Assets

No external IPR worries Public Assets

Final versions published; no document tracking problems

Useful assets What users actually work with i.e. the

document, not its components or a collection of documents

Simpler system with reduced number of assets Allows asset management overhead to be

incorporated into current practice (mostly)


Metadata requirements Starting point is College use of system

not requirement to conform to any one standard DC at core, but mix of MARC and LOM fields to

support college needs Balance between what College needs and

system interoperability needs E.g. Unit Codes for College needs; ‘Publisher’

for good quality records in wider environment Metadata for single records to come from

mix of teaching and administrative staff Educational descriptions from teaching staff


The solution Web-based publishing interface Customised forms allow both simplified and

automated metadata creation and capture Enabling metadata creation and asset management

by administrative staff Integration of existing college systems

eliminates duplication of effort E.g. course structures from student records system Authentication through existing Directory Services

Automated metadata export for library system from SQL database


The solution 3 main points of access to digital

assets Website browsing by curriculum grouping

(digital assets) Website searching (digital assets) Comprehensive search of all information

assets held by College Library management system

Services created for use by whole College


Choices and automation Freeform choice

Keywords Controlled choices

Date of meeting, committee name, document type, Contributor

Resultant automated metadata Title, Author, Filename, File Location,

Publication Date Fixed automated metadata

Status, Publisher, Rights, Language, Coverage


So what?

Toolkit available to all for use as you wish Documentation

Choices Training materials Etc

Database structures, queries Web server scripts


Partnership Joint Information Systems Committee John Wheatley College Centre for Digital Library Research

with support from Scottish Library and Information Council Glasgow City Council Scottish Further and Higher Education

Funding Council


METADATA

DIGITAL ASSET

www.jwheatley.ac.uk/mandate improving access to digital resources: a mandate for order mandate:...

Documents