Keeping in step with URCs

[Jon Knight <[e-mail]>]

Hi all,

I'm one of the programmers working on the ROADS Project, a UK funded 
development project providing software to support subject based services 
(see <URL:http://ukoln.bath.ac.uk/roads/> for more details).  We've been 
using extended versions of the IAFA template to date for providing 
resource descriptions and they're working reasonably well for us at the 
moment.  However, what our users (the subject services) are really doing 
is generating metadata - the sort of metadata that you might expect to 
find inside the URCs of the future.  As such we'd like to ensure that we 
keep in step with the current thinking on URCs, and also feedback some of 
our experiences with the current ROADS templates and tools into the URC 
development process.

Looking at the IAFA templates we've got so far and comparing them to other
metadata formats, one is struck by the fact that they are relatively
simple to create, which we feel is a Good Thing(tm).  We picked on IAFA
templates when we were proposing the project well over a year ago as it
looked like a promising candidate for the URC format.  Now that we have
several months experience with production services using our software and
lots of filled in templates, we thought it would be interesting to look 
at which template types and attributes are most commonly used in our 
environment.

It would be great to compare notes with other groups that look after 
large collections of Internet resource descriptions, in whatever format 
they're currently using.  Ideally this would give us an idea as to 
whether its feasible to devise a minimal "lowest common denominator" URC 
format.  We'd like to have some hard figures before we suggest anything 
formally to the group.  It would also be interesting to compare these 
results to the Dublin Core elements.

Anyway, we'd welcome any feedback from members for the list. 

Tatty bye,

Jim'll

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Jon "Jim'll" Knight, Researcher, Sysop and General Dogsbody, Dept. Computer
Studies, Loughborough University of Technology, Leics., ENGLAND.  LE11 3TU.
* I've found I now dream in Perl.  More worryingly, I enjoy those dreams. *