IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (IEEE LTSC) February 15, 2005 Background: In August of 2005 the American Library Association (ALA) asked IEEE (Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers) to provide a liaison person to their Committee on Cataloguing: Description and Access (CC:DA), and, in particular, to help shape a key document, "Resource Description and Access (RDA)." A copy of the request appears below as Part II. In response to the ALA request, the LTSC LOM (Learning Objects Metadata) Committee selected W. Curtiss Priest (MIT/CITS/EPIE) as the liaison person and Wayne Hodgins (Autodesk Corporation) as a co-liaison person. The RDA was discussed at a full day session in San Antonio, as part of the Midwinter Meeting of ALA (January 20-25, 2006). Mr. Hodgins attended and conveyed our perspective that the current RDA does not sufficiently deal with cataloging entities that are commonly called "learning objects." On February 15th, final, formal comments on the RDA were due and we submitted the following comments (Part I). The format of these comments was structured to fit within the web-based submission tool, Confluence. Part I: Note: material between * * is boldface *IEEE LTSC LOM-1:* The world of Learning, Education and Training, which the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee represents, is very much hoping and wanting to gain great benefit from the enormous experience and expertise of the ALA and library community. This is particularly true for the LTSC Learning Object Metadata (LOM) working group. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC LOM-2:* The need for assistance, with metadata in particular, arises from the focus LTSC has on developing standards to enable learning anytime, anywhere which is customized to match the context of the individual learner. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC LOM-3:* It is not clear that ALA has grasped the totality and pervasiveness of the "sea change" that is occurring at an exponential rate in the world of content. That being a true "paradigm shift" in the transformation from static to dynamic content that will be not only dynamic in terms of being assembled in a much more on-demand fashion, but also content that will be unique assemblies that are massively customized and ultimately personalized to be "just right" for the individual "consumer" aka reader, listener, watcher, learner, teacher, etc. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC LOM-4:* This type of digital, dynamic on demand content is extremely new and demands holistic rethinking and redefining the notion of a "resource" and the corresponding changes required for the metadata to describe such resources. This new paradigm is dependant upon massively increased amounts of metadata, classifications and other domains of which librarians are historically the masters. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC LOM-5:* Therefore the current work on the new RDA CC:DA provides a prime opportunity to both formalize and increase this relationship and mutual benefits between ALA and IEEE LTSC. However, this is only true to the extent which there is a common vision of the future of learning resources. RDA works very well for the historic and often current models of content (and libraries) of "book-like" and typically "self describing" resources, but much less so with the new and evolving models of content. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC LOM-6:* Not only is the content itself changing dramatically, so too are the roles of the producers and consumers of both content and metadata. We are seeing the emergence of what futurists such as Alvin Toffler called "ProSumers" in his 1960's book "Future Shock". We will no longer be nicely divided up into being either a "producer" or a "consumer" (words that are somewhat dated but still meaningful) and instead we are all becoming both of these. How will ALA and others deal with all the content and the metadata which is being created by "the rest of us"? Examples of such "mass contribution" include blogs, wikis, presentation slides, Email, digital photos, music metadata and more. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC LOM-7:* IEEE LTSC would therefore have the perspective that ALA is at a critical decision point with this new RDA. If the focus of ALA is on revising the historic models of content as typically large fixed resources such as books, journals, films, etc. and with similarly fixed metadata records such as the card catalog, then there is not likely to be much synergy or benefit between ALA and LTSC. If however the focus is on addressing these newly emerging models of extremely modular and dynamic content, then the synergy and benefits are enormous. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC LOM-8:* Relative to this decision point, it should be noted that the RDA and CC:DA documents themselves, and the process of creating and publishing them, reflects the very change in "content" or resources that is referenced above. There appears to be considerable discussion amongst the RDA and CC:DA group members over how their own documents will be created, published and indexed such as questions about the decision to have the primary driver and model for these documents to be "digital" and "web based" format as opposed to "print based. We would suggest that this is a very telling example of the current and rapidly changing models of content and the problems they present. ALA would do well to consider this as they decide upon what direction to take with RDA. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-1:* One of the primary goals of RDA is to be "... a consistent, flexible and extensible framework ..." yet there is almost complete lack of addressing the stated goal of flexibility and extensibility of the framework, and especially by any other than the author and beyond the perspective of librarians and libraries. In particular that RDA seems to be based entirely on the perspective of librarians and libraries, yet the goals state that this is to be used by all communities. With literally no mention of extensibility in the RDA then either the goal statement needs to be changed or the document needs to address extensibility. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-2:* Given the other stated goal of "... description of all types of resources and all types of content." RDA seems to be based on a very historical model of resources, essentially books and book-like fixed resources. Yet the fundamental change taking place is in the very paradigm or model of content itself. The growing majority of resources (content) is NOT fixed, but rather assembled, increasingly dynamically and more on-demand, with mass contributions of the content itself and mass customization of the content upon delivery in a consumable form. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-3:* There is also concern with the stated goal to "Be compatible with internationally established principles, models, and standards.", yet there appears to be very little reference to or examples of the use of other standards. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-4:* We would strongly encourage ALA to follow "standard ways of creating standards" such as RDA that are flexible and extensible so as to allow for the inevitable changes and evolution that will certainly continue and accelerate though the life span of this version of RDA. With the stated goal of covering all content and all communities, the importance of following such "standard approach to developing standards" is even more critical. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-5:* The use of abstract conceptual models is a particularly good way to do so. Along with the similar suggestions from DCMI, we specifically recommended that CC:DA create 3 abstract conceptual models for: *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-5-Abstraction 1:* Resources (content) 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-5-Abstraction 2:* Metadata 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-5-Abstraction 3:* Services 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statements-6:* It may also be of great interest to ALA that DCMI and IEEE LTSC have recently created a new joint working group to create a common abstract conceptual model for metadata. Participation and tracking by ALA of this new work would be welcomed and encouraged. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statement, Note-1A - Further commentary on how the RDA Achieves Extensibility:* We note in "Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records" (aka FRBR): "extensibility of expression" (p. 43) defined on p. 44. Extensibility reflects the expectation that the expression will have additional intellectual or artistic content added to it (e.g., an expression that is completed one part at a time, segment by segment, issue by issue, etc.). In the "Functional Requirements for Authority Records" (aka FRANAR) document, extensible or extensibility does not appear at all. If we now turn the the Draft RDA, the word extensible or extensability does not appear at all. Now, let's also focus on the word "function." This word is widely used in the background documents, indeed, appearing in the title of FRBR. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statement, Note-1B:* In the RDA we have on page 2, as the "Objectives and Principles" of the RDA: "Functional objectives and principles of resource description." But the use of "function" is to function within the context of locating a resource (identifying) and providing it to the user. On page 5 of the RDA: "structure and style of the Draft are designed to function in a web-based environment" but again, function is directed, not at, say the function of a learning object in relationship to other learning objects, but, has been subjugated to the function of librarianship. Indeed, an object, to a librarian is something like a book, or, more generally an entity. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statement, Note-2A:* In that these issues involving non-standard entities will be extremely alien to many discussing this RDA, it seems to us that there are two roles we can play in your revisions: Above we have discussed the easier problem of metataging resources. Our years of taxonomy building and relationships with others, such as the Dublin Core, is experience to be drawn on. We suggest that an RDA revision person join LTSC-LOM@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG This list will be pleased to provide information in shaping the RDA. Our second role is to help extend the envelope. As Deirdre Kiorgaard, Chair, JSC, in the Strategy document asked for an "extensible framework" and we do not see that the current RDA addresses that, we have made various comments on "abstraction" and extensibility is one key component to abstraction. Recall that FRBR document mentions "extensability of expression." And that term, in the FRBR, is in context of an author. It says that an author might "extend" work to include additional work. From an interest of knowledge unification, this is not a powerful concept. We understand how it comes about. Libarians deal with entities by various authors. So, to them, extensability is something the author might do with their own work. But, from an object-oriented standpoint this is quite limiting. An object is extensability because it can inherit new properties and methods. And, those new functions are independent of whoever authored them. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statement, Note-2B:* We believe that the idea of an entity to ALA without authorship (or multiple authorships via inheritance) is a queer beast. Indeed, part of your umbrella of assuring quality has to do with who knowing who authored the piece. We believe there is a lifetime of work ahead of us. For the ALA community this involves a gradual process in expanding the role of librarians and libraries in understanding that organizing resources is not about getting some "gross" entity, like a book, into a user's hand, but, often rather, information 'when needed, as needed,' and at a level of granularity that they may not have conceived of. And, while web search engines provide a frustrating, intermediate interface, we do believe that cataloging and access of ever more granulated pieces raises the need for cataloging that greatly exceeds what is necessary to access entities of less granularity. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statement, Note-3 - Further commentary on the Abstraction Level:* We suggest that for the IEEE efforts (and recent efforts by MIT/CITS/EPIE, below) to be useful to the ALA efforts, we need to, at least question, where and how an RDA addresses: 1.) extensibility; 2.) function (where an object performs functions, i.e., have properties and methods); and objects, where we wish to assign descriptors and catalog these objects. Cataloging must go to a level of fine granularity, beyond taging larger entities created by an author as a whole, and to where objects become sub-divided from "as a whole" viewpoint. But sub-divided does not mean to tag, say, a sentence. We must make it possible for authors/creators to find objects, say, on the net, from which these authors/creators can convey substance to their audience by inter-connecting existing objects, or creating new objects, and where, instead of interconnecting words on a page, the author inter-connects objects such that, via other objects, they can communicate to the "reader." These objects act in relation to other objects as, say, in Smalltalk, as described in the MIT/CITS/EPIE AACE paper: http://www.epie.org/object.doc 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statement, Note-4 - Commentary on the commentary on the Abstraction Level:* As is discussed in our AACE paper, hardly anyone agrees what, say, a "learning object" is. Further, a writer of history on the American Civil War would be mystified if a librarian gave the historian a GUI (interface) to, not letters, articles and books, but to some set of "history objects." No doubt if handed a piece of lead found at Gettysburg, the historian would know this physical object, but, this is not an object with abstraction. It is, as we define it, an "elemental object." The bullet is incapable of describing itself. But, a bullet abstraction object could not only describe itself, but, it could relate itself to the bore of a rifle, could show its trajectory from the rifle, and could tell how many casualties bullets of its make and era caused. Such a bullet object could message a bullet casualty object, and that object could relate any number of known stories about the hardship caused by such a bullet, including, say, diary entries by a soldier. A child, instead of writing a "term paper," could work with knowledge objects, and by "asking them" to "play their parts" in telling a story, the child becomes, not only the orchestrator of these objects, but, has, via "inheritance," added to the supply of such objects. I.e., the emotions, the events, the details that the child has interwoven is not only presented to his/her teacher, but becomes yet another object, and possibly one worthy of CCDA taging. 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Concerns with RDA Goal statement, Note-4 - We ask for the formation of a CCDA Committee to Investigate and help Coordinate Worldwide efforts to Produce a Learning/Knowledge Objects that possess the properites of extensibility, and all other properties of a "well behaved" object as described in the 2004 review "A Condensation and Review of Various 'Learning Object' Activities and Efforts." 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-1:* W. Curtiss Priest BMSLIB@MIT.EDU, IEEE Liaison to ALA 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-2 on the IEEE LTSC/MIT/CITS/EPIE Project on Object Abstraction:* http://object-one.blogspot.com , http://web.mit.edu/priest/www/ , http://cybertrails.org , http://www.epie.org 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-3:* Wayne Hodgins wayne.hodgins@autodesk.com, IEEE Chair, LOM, Co-Liaison to ALA 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-4:* Erik Duval, Technical Editor, Erik.Duval@cs.kuleuven.ac.be 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-5:* IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) 2/15/2006 Learning Objects Metadata (LOM) P1484.12 http://www.ieeeltsc.org/wg12LOM/ 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-6:* IEEE Standard for Learning Object Metadata, IEEE-SA Standard 1484.12.1-2002 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-7:* IEEE Standard for Learning Technology - Extensible Markup Language (XML) Schema Definition Language Binding for Learning Object Metadata, IEEE-SA Standard 1484.12.3- 2005 2/15/2006 *IEEE LTSC Contact Information-8:* IEEE Standards Department, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 2/15/2006 Part II: The IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC) is invited to provide a representative to the Committee on Cataloging: Description and Access (CC:DA), which is a committee of the Cataloging and Classification Section (CCS) within the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). CC:DA is the primary group within the United States that provides input and direction to the formation of descriptive cataloging rules. While these rules have traditionally been seen as useful mainly to the library community, they have the potential for being useful to a wider range of communities. For this reason, CC:DA is formally seeking input from other organizations that have a strong interest in developing standards for resource description and access. The IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee (LTSC), with its interest in standards for resource description, is in a position to provide unique and valuable input. CC:DA has been the primary means for catalogers within the United States to provide input into the development and revision of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition (AACR2). The committee serves as an advisory group to the Joint Steering Committee for the Revision of AACR (JSC). More information about the JSC is available at: http://www.collectionscanada.ca/jsc/. The JSC is now working on a new code, Resource Description and Access (RDA), for projected publication in 2008. RDA will replace AACR2. As the new title suggests, one goal of this effort is to produce a new content standard that may be usable beyond the library community. Your representative to CC:DA provides input into the development of this new code. Your representative will take part in online discussions between meetings and be asked to attend and participate in person at meetings at ALA Annual Conferences (usually held in late June) and ALA Midwinter Meetings, beginning with the ALA Midwinter meeting in San Antonio, January 20-24, 2005. The current committee charge for CC:DA is included with this letter, along with the policy on eligibility of CC:DA representatives. More information about CC:DA is available at: http://www.ala.org/ala/alctscontent/catalogingsection/catcommittees/ccda/ccda.htm