LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – December 2020 Report

The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Impact and Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards

During this reporting period, work has been done to investigate and/or develop a system of analysis or best practice for asking and answering the above questions. A useful framework should analyze how a typical metadata standard contributes to the success of specific stakeholders and functions (users, content management systems, preservation, administration, etc.) It should also be bold enough to discuss level of utility.

It would be important to not only propose a system for analyzing this, but to also test it out across multiple standards to determine the efficacy of the system and its potential uses/misuses for metadata. It would also be vital to gather data across multiple institutions and database types using the same standards to see how specific stakeholders/functions change the value of fields.

During this reporting period, a literature review was completed and the group has been meeting to draft an analysis framework
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Education and Professional Development, Member Engagement, Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
During the next three months, the group will be working on a draft of the project executive summary and work out a timeline to have a working draft out for community comment.

Submitted by Darnelle Melvin on 01/17/2020

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – May 2019 Report

The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Continued work on the Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards project. The committee has formed a subgroup representing both ALCTS and LITA members to populate the framework definition table. The sub-committee has met once during this reporting period.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
The committee, working with previous committee members, harvested the content of Metaware.Buzz before the site was shuttered. The content is currently stored in the Metadata Standards Committee Google drive. We are exploring options within the ALA framework for making the information available again.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
We will be working to transition the Metadata Standards Assessment framework to the next set of committee members to continue the work. We're exploring options for outgoing members to continue to work on the project through assigned sub-group work. We will be meeting at the ALA Annual conference to discuss next steps..

Submitted by Michael Bolam on 05/24/2019

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – February 2019 Report

The group met 4-6 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
The committee got support from the LITA executive board to move to a rotating Chair/Vice-Chair (Chair Elect) model to better support to continuing work of the committee. The ALCTS Co-Chair is communicating with the ALCTS board for approval from them. Additionally, I communicated with the LITA Appointments Committee to assist with the appointment for next year's committee chair. We're also working to get the appointments back in alignment, since they got out of sync this year.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

Second Activity
Continued work on the Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards project. The committee has selected a data model for assessing standards and will be moving into the testing phase to ensure the model works before any additional work is completed.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Third Activity
The committee has begun investigating options for moving the committee blog, Metaware.Buzz from a personally hosted location to something under the ALA umbrella.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Organizational Stability and Sustainability

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Continuing the Metadata Assessment Framework development, with the intent of modeling a draft version by the end of the year.

Submitted by Michael Bolam on 03/29/2019

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – December 2018 Report

The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Continued work on the Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards project. The committee is continuing the information gathering around assessment of fields/elements in metadata standards. The literature review has revealed some adjacent research, but nothing specifically like the proposed “Metadata Assessment Framework”. Next steps include arranging the committee into research groups to begin modeling the framework.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
Less attention has been given to our secondary project, a follow-up to the 2017-2018 project to investigate inclusion and diversity in metadata standards. A draft report should be available soon, with intent to publish before the end of the year.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Continuing the Metadata Assessment Framework development, with the intent of modeling a draft version by the end of the year. Completing the follow-up report on diversity & inclusion in metadata standards.

Submitted by Michael Bolam on 01/10/2019

LITA / ALCTS Metadata Standards Committee – September 2018 Report

The group met 2-3 times this quarter.

Recent Activities

First Activity
Action plan discussion and brainstorming for 2018-2019. The 2017-2018 committee partially completed a project related to diversity and inclusion and metadata standards organizations. The 2018-2019 committee reviewed comments from the committee's presentation at the 2018 ALA Annual Conference to determine next steps and potential themes for the 2018-2019 work of the committee.
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

Second Activity
Impact and Assessment for Fields in Metadata Standards – Based on some of the feedback from the 2018 ALA Conference committee meeting and presentation, the committee is currently in engaged in information gathering around assessment of fields/elements in metadata standards. The goal is to develop a "Metadata Assessment Framework" that could be used in conjunction to the previously published "Principles for Evaluating Metadata Standards".
Meets LITA’s strategic goals for Advocacy and Information Policy, Education and Professional Development

What will your group be working on for the next three months?
Complete literature review for "Metadata Assessment Framework". Identify core questions that the framework should answer (e.g. "Are the fields used in metadata standards effective for their purpose?", "What stakeholders benefit from each metadata field?", "Can the level of benefit be quantified or articulated in a meaningful way?", etc.).

Please provide suggestions for future education topics, initiatives, publications, resources, or other activities that could be developed based on your group’s work.
We're hoping the framework will be valuable to a variety of constituents involved in metadata work and could be presented in a workshop, conference presentation, or publication.

Submitted by Michael Bolam on 10/22/2018