Metadata in general and Dublin Core in specific; some experiences. Presented at a workshop in 2005: Dublin Core in Corporations

1. Metadata in general and
Dublin Core in specific;
some experiences
Kerstin Forsberg
Senior Information Architect
Information Strategy, Clinical Information Science
Mailto:kerstin.l.forsberg@astrazeneca.com
Public homepage: http://www.viktoria.se/~kerstinf/
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2. Metadata?
• The magic word metadata comes up both as
a problem solver and a big problem in itself
when …
• … taking about integrating databases,
reviewing data, archiving records, loading
source tables into DW, decomissioning
systems, navigating between documents,
people and projects, searching for
information, etc. etc.
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3. Challanges and Insights
• Providing professionals with contextualised
information
• “Volvo Core” metadata standard embryo for
Volvo’s intranet 1998-99
• Journalists out in the field need information
based on their current tasks at hand
• Clinical Scientists need information relevant
for their research questions and decisions
• Information services for professionals must
enable ever ongoing structuring and
networking, they can never rely on stable
structures or hierarchies
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4. ”Volvo Core”
• A very early attempt to make use of Dublin
Core 15 elements
• Identified problems
• “These problems are a consequence of trying
to describe information resources without
taking into account the context in which end
users create and consume information.”
Experiences of metadata usage reported in a research paper:
Forsberg, K. and L. Dannstedt (2000) "Extensible use of RDF in a
business context," Presented at the 9th International World Wide
Web Conference, Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 2000.
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5. Research interest: New ways of using IT in
the newsmaking
”… solutions that move beyond the
desktop out to the workplace.”
V. Bellotti and Y. Rogers
<
Metadata based architecture described in a research paper:
Fagrell, H., K. Forsberg and J. Sanneblad (2000)
“FieldWise: a Mobile Knowledge Management
Architecture,” In Proceedings of ACM 2000 Conference
on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
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6. Medical Informatics Vision
Increase creativity,
support decision making
and efficiency
by enabling researchers to
exploit clinical scientific
information globally, and
support personal networks.
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7. Meeting the needs
• Powerful range of medicines, including
many world leaders, in 7 major therapy
areas:
• Gastrointestinal
• Cardiovascular
• Cancer
• Respiratory
• Pain Control & Anaesthesia
• Central Nervous System
• Infection
• Active portfolio management to
maintain quality and value
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8. Drivers for strategic management and
optimal utilisation of clinical information
• Ensuring the usefulness of
information over time (project in
progress, abandoned project,
product on the market or withdrawn
from the market)
• Formal and external
requirements to preserve the
evidential value due to
regulatory and legal reasons
“the industry has not yet
• Informal and internal learned to make best use
requirements to enable re- of the tools it already has,
usability due to such as ways to share
scientifical and historical information across the
reasons various businesses”.
The Economist July 2002
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9. Today’s business focus on …
Have you delivered your data and
documents?
Data capture
p-CRF
CRF
CRF
Study Submission
outline Patient Study data ready
e-CRF e-CTD
CDP CSP CSR- CSR
document
Investigator
SMF
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10. Instead ...
Are you motivated, and provided with
tools and procedures, to contribute to
our shared information assets?
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11. Are you motivated, and provided with tools
and procedures, to …
• … make the information assets
accessible?
• Do you know where to store and
how to manage the different
types of information (e.g.
applying relevant version
handling)
• Is it available through different
information services (e.g. is the
source being properly indexed by
search engines)
• Is it formatted in a way that is
open for different communication
channels, presentation interfaces
and device types
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12. Are you motivated, and provided with tools
and procedures, to …
• …make the information assets
understandable by putting it in a
context?
• Relating it to the operational and
scientific context, i.e. topics, things
and tasks, we talk about and act
upon today
• Making sense for the present
community
• Combining it with other information
types and other pieces of
information
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13. Are you motivated, and provided with tools
and procedures, to …
• …ensure that the information assets
could be part of other contexts that is,
to enable re-purpose and future-proof
of the information?
• To be able to relate it to other parts
of operational and scientific contexts
• In the future, to be able to relate it to
the the operational and scientific
contexts as they may look like then
• Making sense for future
communities
• In new combinations
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14. Vision
Single point access
Clinical
specific information
(Portal)
Explicit Tacit
Highly structured data Semi-structured data Unstructured data
Information model / Metaprocess
Diplomat Planet Library Internal
Impact Networks
SAS GEL Partners
External
Amos Shared External Networks
Maud Files Databases
Olsson’s
Notes
Database Disease characteristics

15. Exemples

16. Exemples existing sources and
applications
General
Search Service
GEL repository a
“search enabled source”
R&D Portal
and Targeted Existing GEL
Study Webs Gap
Operational Services
Views of GEL information
“portlet enabled functionality”
Occasional users Power users
• Reviewers • GLAs
• Occational authors • Publishers
• Document consumers • SLiM contributors
• SLiM consumers • Technical writers

17. The lack of metadata
One Key Problem to enable reuse of
information and to
Single point access facilitate navigation
between data and
documents!
Clinical
specific information
(Portal)
Explicit Tacit
Highly structured data Semi-structured data Unstructured data
Information model / Metaprocess
Diplomat Planet Library Internal
Impact Networks
SAS GEL Partners
External
Amos Shared External Networks
MATRIX Files Databases
Disease characteristics

18. AZ R&D IM/KM metadata standard
Implementing Dublin Core
Content Intellectual property Instantiation
• Title: A name given to the • Creator: An entity primarily • Date: A date associated
resource. responsible for making the with an event in the life
• Subject: The topic of the content of the resource.
content of the resource cycle of the resource.
• Publisher: An entity • Format: The physical or
• Description: An account of responsible for making the
the content of the resource. digital manifestation of the
resource available.
• Type: The nature or genre resource
of the content of the • Contributor: An entity
responsible for making • Identifier: An
resource.
contributions to the content unambiguous reference to
• Source: A Reference to a the resource within a given
resource from which the of the resource
present resource is derived. • Rights: Information about context.
• Relation: A reference to a rights held in and over the • Language: A language of
related resource. resource the intellectual content of
• Coverage: The extent or the resource.
scope of the content of the
resource
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19. AZ R&D IM/KM metadata standard
Core Metadata Elements, parts of
Element Name Description Comments
Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given Unique
context. Recommended best practice is to identify the within the
resource by means of a string or number conforming to a Informatio
formal identification system.
n Resource
Title The name given to the resource. Typically, a Title will be a Free text
name by which the resource is formally known.
Description An account of the content of the resource Free text
Subject The topic of the content of the resource. Typically, a Subject Controlled
will be expressed as keywords or key phrases or Vocabulary
classification codes that describe the topic of the resource. required
Recommended best practice is to select a value from a
controlled vocabulary or formal *classification scheme.
*In the IM/KM program we will pick one or several
Subject(s) from a selected Taxonomy. Subjects are also
known as Taxonomy Nodes/Terms in a Taxonomy context.
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20. General Issues
• What types of Information Resources do
Dublin Core fit for?
• Information Resources
• Work Area
• eRoom
• Infospace
• Information Content
• News
• Web Content
• Links
• Information Presentation layer/Container
• Portlet 20

21. General Issues
• It is not a static list of standard metadata tags!
• Only to be used as s requirement document for
programming of content management applications
• Is it an extensible metadata framework for
standardisation of metadata?
• For metadata element naming and encoding of
metadata values across hetergenous information
sources
• To enhance usage and sharing, searching and
navigation between documents, data and web content
• Supporting portals, search engines, document
management systems, content mangement systems,
archiving of information, etc. etc. etc.
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22. AZ R&D IM/KM metadata standard
Implementing Dublin Core
Content Intellectual property Instantiation
• Title: A name given to the • Creator: An entity primarily • Date: A date associated
resource. responsible for making the with an event in the life
• Subject: The topic of the content of the resource.
content of the resource cycle of the resource.
• Publisher: An entity • Format: The physical or
• Description: An account of responsible for making the
the content of the resource. digital manifestation of the
resource available.
• Type: The nature or genre resource
of the content of the • Contributor: An entity
responsible for making • Identifier: An
resource.
contributions to the content unambiguous reference to
• Source: A Reference to a the resource within a given
resource from which the of the resource
present resource is derived. • Rights: Information about context.
• Relation: A reference to a rights held in and over the • Language: A language of
related resource. resource the intellectual content of
• Coverage: The extent or the resource.
scope of the content of the
resource
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23. Tricky, but important: Type?
• Type, as originally defined in Dublin Core:
• “The nature or genre of the content of the
resource. Type includes terms describing
general categories, functions, genres, or
aggregation levels for content.”
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24. Information type (class of
content)
Types of “information asset”
that are specificed as classes
of content, having a purpose
and lifecycle.
Information Type
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25. Actual information, physical
representation
Types of “information asset”
that are specificed as classes
of content, having a purpose
and lifecycle.
Information Type
Operational perspective
Metadata detailing how and where the
representation of the content (or the
embodiment of the information) is
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created, stored and managed

26. Actual information, logical
”aboutness”
“Subject” perspective
Metadata representing the
“aboutness” of the actual
content and classifying it due
to a sustainable hierarchy of
organised subjects (themes,
Types of “information asset” topics, overall ideas)
that are specificed as classes
of content, having a purpose
and lifecycle.
Information Type
Operational perspective
Metadata detailing how and where the
representation of the content (or the
embodiment of the information) is
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created, stored and managed

27. Actual information, logical
”coverage”
“Subject” perspective
Metadata representing the
“aboutness” of the actual
content and classifying it due
to a sustainable hierarchy of
organised subjects (themes,
Types of “information asset” topics, overall ideas)
that are specificed as classes
of content, having a purpose
and lifecycle ín their contexts. Business perspective
Metadata representing
the “aboutness” of the
Information Type actual content and
describing the extent or
scope of the content in
relation to the changing
business context of
interrelated of
organisations, processes,
products, etc.
Operational perspective
Metadata detailing how and where the
representation of the content (or the
embodiment of the information) is
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created, stored and managed

28. Information type, metadata
application
“Subject” perspective
Metadata representing the
“aboutness” of the actual
content and classifying it due
to a sustainable hierarchy of
organised subjects (themes,
Types of “information asset” topics, overall ideas)
that are specificed as classes
of content, having purpose and
lifecycle ín their contexts. Business perspective
Metadata representing
the “aboutness” of the
Information Type actual content and
describing the extent or
scope of the content in
relation to the changing
Specifies the metadata to be business context of
applied in the interrelated of
creation and management organisations, processes,
of information products, etc.
Operational perspective
Metadata detailing how and where the
representation of the content (or the
embodiment of the information) is
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created, stored and managed

29. Information type, metadata
application
“Subject” perspective
Metadata representing the
“aboutness” of the actual
content and classifying it due
to a sustainable hierarchy of
organised subjects (themes,
Types of “information asset” topics, overall ideas)
that are specificed as classes
of content, having purpose and
lifecycle ín their contexts. Business perspective
Metadata representing
the “aboutness” of the
Information Type actual content and
describing the extent or
scope of the content in
relation to the changing
Specifies the metadata to be business context of
applied in the interrelated of
creation and management organisations, processes,
of information products, etc.
Operational perspective
and used for Metadata detailing how and where the
selection and access representation of the content (or the
to information embodiment of the information) is
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created, stored and managed

30. Information Type (or Class????)
• Proposed definition and usage within the AZ
R&D IM/KM context:
• A class of content having a specified lifecycle
and required utilisation (behaviour)
• To specify the metadata structure and the
metadata rules to be applied in the creation
and management of information.
• To specify available metadata to be utilised
for selection, search, access and presentation
of information
• Type List for now, but later on a Type
Registry????
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31. Are you motivated, and provided with
tools and procedures, to contribute to
our shared information assets?
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