Metadata

Instructor: Patricia K. Galloway

Office: SZB 459
Office hours: Thursday, 8:00-11:00 AM, or by appointment
Office telephone: 232-9220
Email: galloway@gslis.utexas.edu

Class meeting location: SZB 468
Class meeting period: Wednesday, 6:00-9:00 PM

Teaching assistant: Ryan Sullivan
Email: rsullivan@ryansullivan.com

Course Description

This course will focus upon constructing the "metadata continuum"--all elements of metadata collected about an electronic record or generated as part of it during its lifetime--in order to understand how metadata may function as an authenticating wrapper for an electronic record. Elements of the continuum that will be taken up and analyzed include records surveys and inventories, creation metadata, active management metadata, records schedules, accession records, cataloging and description metadata, maintenance records, and usage records. Elements of these metadata sets will be analyzed as to function and meaning and harmonized into a workable metadata regime for the specific case study of email, which will then be implemented by the Digitization for Preservation and Access class (unique number 44640). Students will be exposed to major metadata initiatives, both within and without the library/archives fields, and will critique their products with reference to the metadata continuum they have constructed.

Objectives

This class has been designed so that students need know nothing about electronic records or electronic records metadata to begin with, because we will proceed by a discovery method dealing with actual metadata models in use in local repositories in order to build our own metadata set, guided by the methods used in the SPIRT project for creating a "metadata continuum" at Monash University. On the basis of our experience in harmonizing the full range of metadata into a single continuum, we will then discuss major metadata initiatives. By the end of the course students should know:

1) What possible kinds of metadata might be generated in a permanent record's life cycle

2) What kinds of metadata need to be preserved permanently

3) What metadata schemes are presently influential, and how to evaluate them

4) How to implement a metadata scheme

Since there is no single universally accepted archival metadata set, nor is there likely to be one in the near future, the overall goal of the course is to equip students with the ability to evaluate and create a workable metadata set, appropriate to the purpose with which they are confronted, while at the same time acquainting them with international initiatives toward a single standard for surrogate record metadata on the World Wide Web.

Assignments

Class participation (20% of grade): Students will be expected to read assigned readings and come to class prepared to discuss them.

Semester project (30% of grade): We are together going to build a workable and complete metadata set to support the creation, retention, permanent preservation, and access to email records. We will be considering a single packet of metadata instruments, augmented by other such instruments as students may provide from their own places of work present or past or other projects. Each student will take up one metadata domain, become expert in its semantics and syntax, build a domain webpage to become part of the class website, and present and lead discussion on the metadata domain during the appropriate class meeting. Grading will be on the basis of the webpage, the presentation, and student participation in the project as a whole. Students will also be asked to assess their own and each others' contributions to the project.

Essay (15% of grade): Each student will carry out research in the metadata literature appropriate to his or her team assignment and will produce a report of appropriate length to serve as documentation for the development of the metadata set. The due date for this essay is not negotiable, since the set must be complete in time for the Preservation and Access class to implement it; a penalty of one-half letter grade will be assessed for each day the essay is late.

Exams (mid-term, 10% of grade; final, 25% of grade): A brief mid-term test and class evaluation will allow students and instructor to get an idea of how well we are doing and will cover course content to that point. The final examination will cover the whole course content and team activities. Students are expected to take examinations on time unless they have a valid doctor's excuse or require accommodation for disability or religious holy days; in any case they should contact me as soon as they know that there will be a problem.