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Metadata in general and Metadata in general and Dublin Core in specific;Dublin Core in specific;

some experiencessome experiencesKerstin Forsberg

Senior Information ArchitectInformation Strategy, Clinical Information Science

Mailto:kerstin.l.forsberg@astrazeneca.com

Public homepage: http://www.viktoria.se/~kerstinf/

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Metadata?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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Challanges and InsightsChallanges 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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””Volvo Core”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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Research interest: New ways of using IT in Research interest: New ways of using IT in the newsmakingthe 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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Medical Informatics VisionMedical 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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Meeting the needsMeeting 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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Drivers for strategic management and Drivers for strategic management and optimal utilisation of clinical informationoptimal 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

• Informal and internal requirements to enable re-usability due to scientifical and historical reasons

“the industry has not yet learned to make best use of the tools it already has, such as ways to share information across the various businesses”.

The Economist July 2002

“the industry has not yet learned to make best use of the tools it already has, such as ways to share information across the various businesses”.

The Economist July 2002

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Today’s business focus on …Today’s business focus on …

Patient

Investigator

Study data

e-CTDCSR-

documentCSR

Submission ready

SMF

CDP CSP

Study outline

CRFCRF

CRFp-CRF

e-CRF

Data capture

Have you delivered your data and documents?

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Instead ...Instead ...Are you motivated, and provided with tools and procedures, to contribute to our shared information assets?

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Are you motivated, and provided with tools Are you motivated, and provided with tools and procedures, to …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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Are you motivated, and provided with tools Are you motivated, and provided with tools and procedures, to …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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Are you motivated, and provided with tools Are you motivated, and provided with tools and procedures, to …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

Explicit Tacit

User focusClinical

specific information(Portal)

Process focus

Single point access

Highly structured data Unstructured dataSemi-structured data

Disease characteristics

ImpactInternalNetworks

Library

Information model / Metaprocess

Diplomat

SAS

Amos

Planet

GEL

Shared FilesMaud

Olsson’sNotes

Database

Partners

ExternalDatabases

ExternalNetworks

VisionVision

ExemplesExemples

Exemples existing sources and Exemples existing sources and applicationsapplications

Power users• GLAs• Publishers• SLiM contributors• Technical writers

Existing GELExisting GELR&D Portal

andStudy Webs

R&D Portaland

Study Webs

Occasional users• Reviewers• Occational authors• Document consumers• SLiM consumers

GapTargetedOperational Services

Views of GEL information“portlet enabled functionality”

TargetedOperational Services

Views of GEL information“portlet enabled functionality”

GeneralSearch Service

GEL repository a“search enabled source”

GeneralSearch Service

GEL repository a“search enabled source”

Explicit Tacit

User focusClinical

specific information(Portal)

Process focus

Single point access

Highly structured data Unstructured dataSemi-structured data

Disease characteristics

ImpactInternalNetworks

Library

Information model / Metaprocess

Diplomat

SAS

Amos

Planet

GEL

Shared FilesMATRIX

Partners

ExternalDatabases

ExternalNetworks

The lack of metadata to enable reuse of information and to

facilitate navigation between data and

documents!

One Key ProblemOne Key Problem

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AZ R&D IM/KM metadata standardAZ R&D IM/KM metadata standardImplementing Dublin Core Implementing Dublin Core

Content • Title: A name given to the

resource.• Subject: The topic of the

content of the resource• Description: An account of

the content of the resource.• Type: The nature or genre

of the content of the resource.

• Source: A Reference to a resource from which the present resource is derived.

• Relation: A reference to a related resource.

• Coverage: The extent or scope of the content of the resource

Intellectual property• Creator: An entity primarily

responsible for making the content of the resource.

• Publisher: An entity responsible for making the resource available.

• Contributor: An entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource

• Rights: Information about rights held in and over the resource

Instantiation• Date: A date associated

with an event in the life cycle of the resource.

• Format: The physical or digital manifestation of the resource

• Identifier: An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context.

• Language: A language of the intellectual content of the resource.

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AZ R&D IM/KM metadata standardAZ R&D IM/KM metadata standardCore Metadata Elements, parts ofCore Metadata Elements, parts of

Element Name Description Comments

Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context. Recommended best practice is to identify the resource by means of a string or number conforming to a formal identification system. 

Unique within the Information Resource

Title The name given to the resource. Typically, a Title will be a name by which the resource is formally known.

Free text

Description An account of the content of the resource 

Free text

Subject The topic of the content of the resource. Typically, a Subject will be expressed as keywords or key phrases or classification codes that describe the topic of the resource. 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. 

Controlled Vocabulary

required

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General IssuesGeneral 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

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General IssuesGeneral 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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AZ R&D IM/KM metadata standardAZ R&D IM/KM metadata standardImplementing Dublin Core Implementing Dublin Core

Content • Title: A name given to the

resource.• Subject: The topic of the

content of the resource• Description: An account of

the content of the resource.• Type: The nature or genre

of the content of the resource.

• Source: A Reference to a resource from which the present resource is derived.

• Relation: A reference to a related resource.

• Coverage: The extent or scope of the content of the resource

Intellectual property• Creator: An entity primarily

responsible for making the content of the resource.

• Publisher: An entity responsible for making the resource available.

• Contributor: An entity responsible for making contributions to the content of the resource

• Rights: Information about rights held in and over the resource

Instantiation• Date: A date associated

with an event in the life cycle of the resource.

• Format: The physical or digital manifestation of the resource

• Identifier: An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context.

• Language: A language of the intellectual content of the resource.

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Tricky, but important: Type? 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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Information type (class of Information type (class of content) content)

Information Type

Types of “information asset” that are specificed as classes of content, having a purpose

and lifecycle.

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Actual information, physical Actual information, physical representationrepresentation

Types of “information asset” that are specificed as classes of content, having a purpose

and lifecycle.

Information Type

Operational perspectiveMetadata detailing how and where the representation of the content (or the embodiment of the information) is

created, stored and managed

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Actual information, logical Actual information, logical ”aboutness””aboutness”

Information Type

“Subject” perspectiveMetadata representing the “aboutness” of the actual

content and classifying it due to a sustainable hierarchy of organised subjects (themes,

topics, overall ideas)Types of “information asset” that are specificed as classes of content, having a purpose

and lifecycle.

Operational perspectiveMetadata detailing how and where the representation of the content (or the embodiment of the information) is

created, stored and managed

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Actual information, logical Actual information, logical ”coverage””coverage”

Information Type

“Subject” perspectiveMetadata representing the “aboutness” of the actual

content and classifying it due to a sustainable hierarchy of organised subjects (themes,

topics, overall ideas)Types of “information asset” that are specificed as classes of content, having a purpose and lifecycle ín their contexts.

Operational perspectiveMetadata detailing how and where the representation of the content (or the embodiment of the information) is

created, stored and managed

Business perspectiveMetadata representing the “aboutness” of the

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.

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Information type, metadata Information type, metadata applicationapplication

Information Type

“Subject” perspectiveMetadata representing the “aboutness” of the actual

content and classifying it due to a sustainable hierarchy of organised subjects (themes,

topics, overall ideas)Types of “information asset” that are specificed as classes

of content, having purpose and lifecycle ín their contexts.

Operational perspectiveMetadata detailing how and where the representation of the content (or the embodiment of the information) is

created, stored and managed

Business perspectiveMetadata representing the “aboutness” of the

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.

Specifies the metadata to be applied in the

creation and managementof information

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Information type, metadata Information type, metadata applicationapplication

Information Type

“Subject” perspectiveMetadata representing the “aboutness” of the actual

content and classifying it due to a sustainable hierarchy of organised subjects (themes,

topics, overall ideas)Types of “information asset” that are specificed as classes

of content, having purpose and lifecycle ín their contexts.

Operational perspectiveMetadata detailing how and where the representation of the content (or the embodiment of the information) is

created, stored and managed

Business perspectiveMetadata representing the “aboutness” of the

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.

Specifies the metadata to be applied in the

creation and managementof information and used for

selection and access to information

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Information Type (or Class????) 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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Are you motivated, and provided with tools and procedures, to contribute to our shared information assets?