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Section 0. Contact and confidentiality
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Contact e-mail: s.currier@intrallect.com
Do you mind your use case being made public on the working group website and documents? No.
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Section 1. Application
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In this section we ask you to provide some information about the application for which the vocabulary(ies) and or vocabulary mappings are being used.
Please note:
-- If your use case does not involve any specific application, but consists rather in the description of a specific vocabulary, skip straight to Section 2.
-- If your application makes use of links between different vocabularies, do not forget to fill in Section 3!
1.1. What is the title of the application?
- intraLibrary
1.2. What is the general purpose of the application?
What services does it provide to the end-user?
- Web-based learning object repository software. Supports storage, sharing, reuse and repurposing of learning resources.
*1.3. Provide some examples of the functionality of the application. Try to illustrate all of the functionalities in which the vocabulary(ies) and/or vocabulary mappings are involved.
- Support for import, editing and export of metadata in IMS and LOM formats; export in DC format; extensibility so other metadata schemas can be supported;
- Import and export of IMS Content Packages and SCORM packages;
- Previewing of packages;
- Import of taxonomies in ZThes format;
- Import of terms for flat vocabularies in VDEX format;
- Web form based editing of flat vocabularies and provision of “labels” for standard vocabularies;
- Browsing by taxonomies used in the LOM classification field;
- Search and advanced search of metadata fields, including those populated by controlled vocabularies;
- Support for different languages.
1.4. What is the architecture of the application?
What are the main components?
Are the components and/or the data distributed across a network, or across the Web?
- The application is a data-driven web-application implemented in J2EE which runs in a Java Servlet Engine, using a relational database for data persistence.
1.5. Briefly describe any special strategy involved in the processing of user actions, e.g. query expansion using the vocabulary structure.
- Complex queries can be performed across different vocabularies.
1.6. Are the functionalities associated with the controlled vocabulary(ies) integrated in any way with functionalities provided by other means? (For example, search and browse using a structured vocabulary might be integrated with free-text searching and/or some sort of social bookmarking or recommender system.)
- Searching can combine controlled vocabularies and free text fields in metadata. Not currently able to free text search actual resource content.
1.7. Any additional information, references and/or hyperlinks.
See our website: http://www.intrallect.com/
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Section 2. Vocabulary(ies)
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In this section we ask you to provide some information about the vocabulary or vocabularies you would like to be able to represent using SKOS.
Please note:
-- If you have multiple vocabularies to describe, you may repeat this section for each one individually or you may provide a single description that encompasses all of your vocabularies.
-- If your use case describes a generic application of one or more vocabularies and/or vocabulary mappings, you may skip this section.
-- If your vocabulary case contains cross-vocabulary links (between the vocabularies you presented or to external vocabularies), please fill in section 3!
2.1. What is the title of the vocabulary? If you're describing multiple vocabularies, please provide as many titles as you can.
- Classification Vocabularies: We support the ability to browse by browse tree, constructed from taxonomies and classification schemes used in the LOM Classification element. Any number of taxonomies can be used in a given installation of intraLibray. They can be imported as ZThes files, or entered manually term by term. They can be edited manually. When metadata is being created or edited for a resource within intraLibrary’s Metadata Editor, the taxonomies can be searched within the Classification Editor to find appropriate terms to classify by. Individual nodes can also be selected directly in order to classify. We support the full LOM Classification element, i.e. individual classifications for resources can be assigned a classification type, such as “Discipline” or “Education al Objective”, and also assigned keywords and descriptions. The LOM classification type vocabulary can be extended. So, our customers can select or create any taxonomy for this. The most commonly used are DDC, JACS, LearnDirect, MESH. JACS and LearnDirect are educational subject classifications relevant to the UK. Some customers also develop bespoke taxonomies and often choose to manage these via ZThes and import them, rather than manage them within the application.
- Other vocabularies: LOM metadata has a number of fields where controlled vocabularies can be used- these are almost invariably flat lists of terms. These vocabularies can be managed from within the application through web forms. Terms can be imported in VDEX format or added manually. As required by the LOM, a source and value for each term is stored, and it is also possible to create labels for the standard terms; this allows understandable human terms to be used for values which may be numbers, or may be jargon; it also allows alternative language terms to be used.
2.2. Briefly describe the general characteristics of the vocabulary, e.g. scope, size...
- No limitations on what we can support in this sense.
2.3. In which language(s) is the vocabulary provided?
In the case of partial translations, how complete are these?
- We currently provide most standard LOM vocabularies in Spanish, as we have a full Spanish version. IntraLibrary has the capability to be extended to any number of languages.
*2.4. Please provide below some extracts from the vocabulary. Use the layout or presentation format that you would normally provide for the users of the vocabulary. Please ensure that the extracts you provide illustrate all of the features of the vocabulary.
2.5. Describe the structure of the vocabulary.
What are the main building blocks?
What types of relationship are used? If you can, provide examples by referring to the extracts given in paragraph 2.4.
- Classification Vocabularies: These can be any depth. Only support tree structure: BT and NT; no RT or NL (Node Label in ZThes). Support “Use For” terms (alternative terms): these appear as mouseover text on the standard classification node only, do not support searching or browsing by these (yet). Do not support faceted classifications; are thinking about whether we need to.
- Other vocabularies: Generally flat lists.
2.6. Is a machine-readable representation of the vocabulary already available (e.g. as an XML document)? If so, we would be grateful if you could provide some example data or point us to a hyperlink.
2.7. Are any software applications used to create and/or maintain the vocabulary?
Are there any features which these software applications currently lack which are required by your use case?
- For ZThes format- we developed a macro on MindManager2002 which turns a mind map into a ZThes vocabulary. Unfortunately, this macro doesn’t work for subsequent versions of MindManager because it has changed so much! This is normally done by creating the taxonomy in Word using Word structuring, then importing to MindManager, then using the macro to create an XML ZThes file. But clunky but vastly better than nothing.
- For VDEX there is a prototype editor available for the RELOAD content packaging tool- not sure if any of our customers use it. Our VDEX functionality is quite new.
2.8. If a database application is used to store and/or manage the vocabulary, how is the database structured? Illustration by means of some table sample is welcome.
- Main table for storing taxonomies structured as follows:
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+------------- +-------------- +------ +----- +--------- +----------------+
| entry | varchar(100) | | MUL | | |
| use_fors | varchar(100) | YES | | NULL | |
| source | int(11) | | | 0 | |
| parent_id | varchar(100) | | MUL | | |
| ref_id | varchar(100) | | MUL | | |
| id | int(11) | | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
| description | text | YES | | NULL | |
2.9. Were any published standards, textbooks or written guidelines followed during the design and construction of the vocabulary?
Did you decide to diverge from their recommendations in any way, and if so, how and why?
ZThes; VDEX. It is important to us to fully support interoperability standards so we don’t deviate from them! However we don’t currently support ZThes RT or NL.
2.10. How are changes to the vocabulary managed?
Vocabularies can be edited within intraLibrary but ZThes and VDEX files cannot be exported.
2.11. Any additional information, references and/or hyperlinks.
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Section 3. Vocabulary Mappings
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In this section we ask you to provide some information about the mappings or links between vocabularies you would like to be able to represent using SKOS.
Please note:
-- If your use case does not involve vocabulary mappings or links, you may skip this section!
3.1. Which vocabularies are you linking/mapping from/to?
- We would like to be able to do federated browsing, and see bits of remote repositories taxonomies and display chunks of remote taxonomies as someone browses.
- We would like to be able to allow users to add a vocabulary directly from a vocabulary registry or other storage point in one or two clicks.
*3.2. Please provide below some extracts from the mappings or links between the vocabularies. Use the layout or presentation format that you would normally provide for the users of the mappings. Please ensure that the examples you provide illustrate all of the different types of mapping or link.
3.3. Describe the different types of mapping used, with reference to the examples given in paragraph 3.2.
3.4. Any additional information, references and/or hyperlinks.
- There’s something I couldn’t find a space for: the LOM requires that you specify a “source” for vocabularies: some kind of vocabulary authority with unique IDs would be good to have.