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Subject: Radford comments germane to ISBN, and more
Allyn Radford, a member of John Hunt's Learning Specialization SC, noted Eliot's post about ISBN metadata being sequestered in its present definition. Please see how these comments might enlighten that discussion when it comes up in our agenda. Thanks! Regards, -- Don Day Chair, OASIS DITA Technical Committee Chair, IBM DITA Architects Board Email: dond@us.ibm.com 11501 Burnet Rd. MS9033E015, Austin TX 78758 Phone: +1 512-244-2868 (home office) "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" --T.S. Eliot ----- Forwarded by Don Day/Austin/IBM on 06/04/2008 09:08 AM ----- Allyn Radford <allynr@learnilit ies.com.au> To Don Day/Austin/IBM@IBMUS 06/03/2008 07:32 cc PM Michael Priestley <mpriestl@ca.ibm.com>, John Hunt/Cambridge/IBM@Lotus, Eliot Please respond to Kimber <ekimber@reallysi.com> allynr@learniliti Subject es.com.au DITA Metadata Hi Don (and cc's) I noticed Eliot raising the issue of ISBN's being trapped within the bookmap specialization rather than being part of the core DITA metadata. The issue raised is, I believe, an important one and I also think that it extends well beyond the issue of ISBN's alone. During the work of the Learning Specialization subcommittee harmonizing IEEE LOM within the content structures of that specialization I raised the issue of metadata within DITA in general and suggested that some alternative approach may be necessary as DITA continues to evolve and support an increasing number of communities and specializations. Still being a bit of a newby to DITA processes I probably didn't raise this issue in accordance with procedures the first time around and so while outlining the issues here I am also requesting some guidance on how to raise this sort of issue most appropriately. The issues raised below are under the general assumption that DITA content may ultimately be used across any sector or community (corporate, publishing, educational, government, defense etc) and that the scope of content development and reuse should be cognizant of the different requirements of these sectors. As I see it the issues may be generally described as follows: 1. Revision of Core DITA metadata The current metadata that is core to DITA is strongly representative of DITA's origins and is not always well suited to the growing number of specializations. While this may seem easily dismissed since most fields are optional, my experience is that the more metadata fields that people have to contend with and the less relevant they are to the community's requirements, the more resistance there is to adoption. It also may require further and potentially unnecessary effort to shield users from irrelevant metadata. For example, the current core metadata contains a number of fields that have little or no relevance to education sector, government sector and particular uses in corporate sector such as broader business documentation etc. Having an abundance of fields that are not required often causes users to question the relevance of the content format for their requirements. As the number of non-technical content developers increases, which is bound to happen when DITA is used across communities in government and education, this issue may have greater impact. 2. Content usage across specializations One of the key values of DITA is that content becomes more reusable across an entire enterprise and between enterprises and collaborating partners, consortia etc. The rules governing content in collaborative or multi-organizational environments can vary substantially and the usage of content for different purposes may also require addition of new metadata in line with particular usage scenarios. This raises several possible sub-issues. a) Content protection - in a variety of situations content will be protected from change due to its commercial or authorized status. When all metadata is embedded this will prevent modification of any type and will mean that even the addition of supplementary metadata will be prevented. b) Accumulation of metadata - as content is reused across an enterprise or consortium it may be necessary to add metadata in accordance with the nature of the content reuse. (eg technical content being reuse for training or marketing; publisher materials being reused in the context of education; government policy content being reused for information or training purposes; accessibility metadata requirements across any use or reuse requirements etc). If all metadata is embedded within the content then problems will occur when content is protected from modification. It is also likely that as content is reused across specializations that the accumulation of metadata will become unwieldy and lead to situations where the volume of metadata outweighs the volume of content itself especially with highly granular content. 3. Embedded vs Associated metadata It may be worth considering a model where core metadata is embedded and non-core metadata is associated. If this approach were adopted the method of association should be part of the core structure of DITA content and should allow the sort of extensibility and flexibility that will overcome the nature of the issues raised here. There would appear to be little value to enabling effective association of metadata without reviewing the existing core metadata. While the impact of some of these issues may be reduced (hopefully) with increased sophistication in the authoring tools, issues relating to protected content and the potential accumulation of metadata will remain. I am interested to know whether these issues are of concern to the TC and also how issues such as this might best be raised - especially since I am not a participant at the TC level. Thanks and regards Allyn -- Allyn J Radford Managing Director Learnilities Pty Ltd www.learnilities.com.au Solution Architecture Consulting Standards-based eLearning Systems and Content Digital Content Exchange Planning and Development Phone: +61 (0)3 9751 0730 Mob: +61 (0)419 009 320 --
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