Existing Conformance to DLF/Aquifer MODS Implementation Guidelines
** Draft Version **

CAS Project, Fall 2007

Colin Koteles

Graduate School of Library and Information Science

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Oral presentation: Monday, Nov. 26 · 4 p.m. · GSLIS 109

Contents

• Abstract
• Documents
  • Supporting documents
  • Resulting documents
• Project commentary
  • Goals
  • Background
  • Methodology
  • Summary of Results
  • Results & Discussion
• Conclusion

Abstract

The DLF/Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records were created to facilitate the creation of rich, sharable metadata for use in aggregated digital humanities collections. While guideline creators recognize most data providers do not meet the criteria set forth in this document, this study attempts to quantify current levels of conformance to the base requirements set forth by DLF/Aquifer MODS guidelines. By analyzing collections for which MODS records are currently made available to OAI-PMH service providers, predictions can be made as to the nature and extent of future normalization processes required by service providers and the nature and extent of training and education required by data providers wishing to expose MODS records useful in a variety of contexts.

Documents

Supporting documents

• DLF/Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records (.pdf - Adobe Portable Document - 564K)
• Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS)

Note: See final paper for full bibliography

Resulting documents

• Draft Paper - Version 2 (.pdf - Adobe Portable Document - 128K)
• Result Data (.xls - Excel Spreadsheet - 632K)
• Result Data (.ods - OpenDocument Spreadsheet - 164K)

Project commentary

Goals

• Measure conformance to nine requirements in the DLF/Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records
• Recommend conformance techniques:
  • For service providers
  • For data providers
• What are the costs of conformance?

Background

Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting

• Low-barrier mechanism for repository interoperability
• Data providers expose metadata available for harvest
• Service providers harvest metadata for aggregation and creation of value-added services
  • OAIster
  • The National Science Digital Library
• OAI-PMH records encapsulate descriptive metadata:
  • Unqualified Dublin Core is required descriptive metadata in OAI-PMH record
  • Other metadata formats allowable; Harvesters generally harvest DC
  • Dublin Core may have limits on quality and shareability

Quality / Shareable Metadata

• Quality: "Low quality metadata can render a library almost unusable..." (Stvilia et al.)
• Helps users find, identify, select, and acquire entities (Bruce & Hillman)
  • Bruce & Hillman: Seven characteristics
    • Completeness
    • Provenance
    • Accuracy
    • Conformance to expectations
    • Logical consistency and coherence
    • Timeliness
    • Accessibility
  • Gasser & Stvilia: Intrinsic, Relational & Reputational
    • Intrinsic: Within the item
    • Relational: Represents external conditions accurately
    • Reputational: Believability of representation
  • Shreeves et al.:
    • Relational Completeness: Description sufficiently supports goals of metadata
    • Intrinsic Consistency: Consistent structure and content

• Shareable: "Interoperable" and "meaningful when combined with metadata from other sources." (DLF/NSDL)
  • Quality metadata and:
  • Consistent across collections
  • Coherent outside of local context
  • Use of standard vocabularies
  • XML (machine interoperability)

• Dublin Core limitations reduce quality and shareability:
  • All elements are optional
  • All elements are repeatable
  • Cannot declare controlled vocabularies
  • Cannot define completeness or consistency outside of local context

DLF/Aquifer Project & MODS

DLF/Aquifer Project

"Promote effective use of distributed digital library content for teaching, learning, and research in the area of American culture and life."

DLF/Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records

• "Rich, shareable metadata that is coherent and consistent, and, thus, useful to aggregators and end-users."
• Born-digital or digitized items; Cultural heritage or humanities-based materials; Specifically meant to be shared
• Based on MODS
• American Social History Online

Metadata Object Description Schema 3.2 (MODS)

• XML-based metadata schema; "Subset of MARC fields and uses language-based tags rather than numeric ones"; "Used for a variety of purposes, and particularly for library applications"
• More explicit and granular than Dublin Core
  • <title> and <subTitle>
  • "keyDate"
• Can declare controlled vocabularies

• DLF/Aquifer Implementation Guidelines for Shareable MODS Records state requirements and recommendations for encoding MODS

Goals of Study

• Guidelines state "the requirements and recommendations set forth here are not currently met by most current and potential Aquifer participants."
• Measure current record conformance to nine DLF/Aquifer MODS guideline requirements (and "required if applicable")
• Make recommendations for remediation:
  • "Service providers will generally expect to do at least a minimal amount of processing of harvested metadata to achieve goals." (DLF/NDSL)
  • "Enhances usefulness, while avoiding misuse or misunderstanding" (Foulonneau & Cole)
  • Cleaning, normalization, augmentation done automatically; Done "safely" to maintain accuracy
  • What processing can more accurately (and easily) be done by data providers

Methodology

Test set

• Harvested nine DLF/MODS Portal Data Contributors plus Digital Books from UIUC and the Open Content Alliance (343,529 records)
• Processed to populate a relational database with repository, record, and element tables
• Collections of less than 1,000 records -> all records extracted; collections of 1,000+ records -> processed enough records for 95% confidence level; Confidence interval of 4

Repositories in Test Set

Repository Name (Base URL)	Records Harvested	Records Extracted
A Celebration of Women Writers (Base URL)	304	304
OCLC Research Publications (Base URL)	852	852
University of Tennessee Libraries, Digital Library Center (Base URL)	859	859
Southern Spaces (Base URL)	62	62
Digital Books from UIUC and the Open Content Alliance (Base URL)	767	766
University of Chicago Library Metadata Repository (Base URL)	372	372
Indiana University Digital Library Program (Base URL)	14,425	721
Deep Blue at the University of Michigan (Base URL)	24,299	967
Library of Congress Digitized Historical Collections (Base URL)	292,000	747
The University of Michigan, University Library, Digital Library Production Service Collections (Base URL)	9,589	639
	343,529	6,289
(DLF/MODS Portal Data Contributors)

Tests

SQL queries to test full specification (including required subelements, attribute/value pairs, and any element content requirements) of the nine requirements (and required if applicable) specified by DLF/Aquifer MODS guidelines.

General result categories:

• Required element (and required subelements and attribute/value pairs) present and not empty
• Compile element/attribute values and subelements
• Group/count values and subelements

Futher heurisitic testing may give deeper insight into quality issues.

Summary of Results

Summary of Percentage of Records with Required MODS Elements

Required Element	Percentage of Records with Element
<titleInfo>	99.89%
<typeOfResource>	84.57%
<originInfo>	30.56%
<language>	5.82%
<physicalDescription>	27.51%
<subject>	83.54%
<location>	17.97%
<accessCondition>	37.89%
<recordInfo>	18.56%
(All required subelements, attribute/value pairs, and valid content must be present to satisfy requirement.)

Metadata Deficiencies

• Missing data - Not there
• Incorrect data - Invalid content
• Confusing data - Ambiguous content
• Insufficient data - No controlled vocabularies declared

Resolution

• What is needed?
• Who should do it (data provider, service provider)?

Results & Discussion

Conclusion

• Conformance issues often solvable by manageable changes in service provider or data provider practices or both.
• Further evaluation of conformance to recommendations and level of quality (<title> , <subject>)
• Evaluate how requirements mesh with MODS Guidelines Levels of Adoption (Meeting MODS Guidelines requirements only meets Level 2 requirements - <name>)

UIUC · GSLIS · CAS Project · Fall, 2007