Service-Oriented Levels of Metadata Adoption
The current draft of services tied to the metadata levels of adoption seem to be an afterthought, brainstormed as way to have the MODS encoding guidelines be less burdensome. Some areas of concern from a service-oriented perspective:
- Can't I browse on subject, language, date, or typeOfResource?
- Can't I limit searches/filter on genre, name/role, or more specific subject sub-elements?
- Do I really need all level 5 elements to effectively evaluate a resource?
- Etc.
The draft below attempts to start from the users service-oriented perspective in the spirit of creating a dialog between SWG and MWG.
Whatever finalized guidelines/requirements emerge, it is important to note that Aquifer has invested a tremendous amount of effort into the creation of MODS encoding guidelines and levels of adoption. It is important that the portal user interface take advantage of this work and that Aquifer's assessment determine if these encoding guidelines and levels of adoption are useful to scholars. Evidence-based guidelines that are ground-tested by actual end-users in an interface of a live service, are more compelling than those developed in the abstract.
Level A. A user is able to identify a resource (to reference, for future re-discovery)
Simple search
Simple search should just be a single search box with no limits at all, like Google.
For this index, should we index entire record or should this be a superset of each separate fielded index? Is there anything in the record that shouldn't be indexed?
Results display
Display Label |
Brief Display Notes |
XPath |
Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
URL |
Do not display the value; make it the target for the hyperlinked Title |
/mods/location/url[@usage="primary"] |
|
Title |
Hyperlink with the URL |
/mods/titleInfo/title |
|
[Thumbnail image] |
Resize x and y with HTML? |
In Asset Action? Also in MODS? |
Only required for images/video |
Date |
Show one date only |
/mods/originInfo/dateCreated/* |
Date that the original object was created; not necessarily machine readable |
For alternative approches for the minimal fields required for identification, see:
Level B. A user is able to find resources through a process (search and/or browse) that offers a modest amount of precision.
- Not yet clear if browse is possible.
- Are there some data elements that we should suppress (not display at all)?
Display Label |
Expose on Advanced Search Form? |
Expose as Browse Facet? |
XPath |
Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
URL |
No |
No |
/mods/location/url[@usage="primary"] |
|
Title |
Yes |
No |
/mods/titleInfo/title |
|
Date [Created] |
Yes, with constrained options |
Yes, if date normalization yields good results. Can these be hierarchical? Era, then Decade, then Year |
/mods/originInfo/dateCreated[@keyDate="yes" and encoding="w3cdtf"] |
Date that the original object was created only (or copyright date); other dates (dataCaptured, dateValid, dateModified, dateOther) seem irrelevant for searching (and display?) |
Creator |
Yes |
Yes |
/mods/name/* |
|
Terms and Conditions of Use |
Checkbox for unrestricted |
Yes |
/mods/accessCondition/* |
|
Subject |
Yes |
Only if meaningful; probably requires enhancement |
/mods/subject/* |
|
Geographic Coverage |
Yes |
Only if meaningful; probably requires enhancement |
/mods/subject/geographic/* |
|
Coverage Date (what to call this?) |
Yes |
Only if meaningful; probably requires enhancment |
/mods/subject/temporal/* |
|
Level C. Everything else. These fields allow users to perform searches with a high degree of precision, browse winnowing, and disambiguation between related resources.
Not yet finished
Required MODS
Display Label |
Expose on Advanced Search Form? |
Expose as Browse Facet? |
Expose on Full Record Display? |
XPath |
Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
URL |
No |
No |
Hyperlink this |
/mods/location/url[@usage="primary"] |
|
Title |
Yes |
No |
Render as is |
/mods/titleInfo/title |
|
Date [Created] |
Yes, with constrained options |
Yes, if date normalization yields good results. Can these be hierarchical? Era, then Decade, then Year |
Show raw date, not normalized dates |
/mods/originInfo/dateCreated[@keyDate="yes" and encoding="w3cdtf"] |
Date that the original object was created only (or copyright date); other dates (dataCaptured, dateValid, dateModified, dateOther) seem irrelevant for searching (and display?) |
Creator |
Yes |
Yes |
Need specs for the how to format all the different elements in here. |
/mods/name/* |
|
Terms and Conditions of Use |
Checkbox for unrestricted |
Yes |
Needs specs for how to render multiple elements |
/mods/accessCondition/* |
|
Subject |
|
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|
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Language |
|
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|
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Genre |
|
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Format |
|
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Genre |
|
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|
|
Genre of original item |
Subject |
|
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Language |
|
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Collection |
|
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Geographic Location |
|
*Country/State |
|
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Recommended MODS
Display Label |
Expose on Advanced Search Form? |
Expose as Browse Facet? |
Expose on Full Record Display? |
XPath |
Comments |
|---|