Potential criteria for assessing the reusability of vocabularies for inclusion in the DC-Ed Application Profile
This page is a draft, and is for discussion only at this stage. Based on an e-mail to the DCMI Education e-mail list by Diane Hillmann, 11 March 2007: please check and refer to the latest on the ![[WWW]](/wiki/dcmi/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
JISCmail list archive. See the main page on Vocabularies for more on discussion so far about these criteria, and how the DC-Ed Community might take things forward.
Herewith is an attempt to propose some criteria for inclusion that focus on reusability. This is not to say that we will not include vocabularies that do not comply with all these factors, but we would certainly prefer those that do:
1. The vocabulary is openly available
While there is a place for licensing in the vocabulary world, most educational organizations aren't able to choose vocabularies that require licensing, either because of financial constraints or institutional size/resources. Also problematic are those vocabularies only available via specialized tools, or 'hidden' behind complex websites.
2. The vocabulary includes definitions
Particularly because the DC-Ed community is international, assumptions that words are used the same everywhere are problematic. This is true even when the words are English, and relatively common: the context of their use by their primary community may affect relationships and boundaries not obvious to others. Definitions assist mightily with this cross-cultural understanding, and are essential for effective mapping between vocabularies.
NB: There has been a suggestion that we talk about concepts rather than words or terms.
3. A standard encoding is available for the vocabulary
This criterion implies that the vocabulary is available as a whole, not just term by term from a search interface. This is important for those attempting to develop new tools, needing to be able to import a vocabulary into that tool, rather than using copy/paste or referring to an ever changing web page. The availability of a standard encoded version also implies a much more machine-oriented view of how vocabularies will be used and re-used.
4. URIs have been assigned to the terms and/or the terms are registered
This is a bit of a holy grail, and few vocabularies are in this category. Including this criteria orients us properly in the right direction and hopefully moves us closer to that ideal. If you're curious to see what a registered vocabulary with URIs looks like, see: The GEM Instructional Methods Vocabulary or The NSDL Learning Resource Type Vocabulary.
In both cases, you can click on 'concepts' to see a list of the individual concepts in the vocabularies, then click on the concepts themselves to see the details and relationships. Encodings can be viewed by using the buttons on the bottom for RDF or (at the top level vocabulary only) the XML Schema.
In the UK, those developing educational vocabularies can also use the Becta Vocabulary Bank, which offers similar functionality to the NSDL Metadata Registry, but allows vocabularies to be created, edited and stored in ZThes rather than SKOS.