Wikiversity:Metadata

This page is for discussing what kind of metadata system we could apply in Wikiversity.

Ideas from 2008
A new Wikiversity metadata tagging system is being built in the guise of Help:project boxes. The projects boxes project has two fundamental premises:


 * 1) Nobody likes metadata and nobody ever voluntarily tags a resource with proper metadata or classifies it.
 * 2) Userboxes are addictive.

The (almost) logical outcome of these two premises is that metadata/classification must be hidden behind a system similar to that of Wikipedia's userboxes if it is to have any chance of widespread adoption. Project boxes are just like user boxes, but applied to educational resources, and have multi-dimensional classification systems hidden in them.

See:
 * Help:project boxes
 * Help:Resources by completion status
 * Help:Resources by educational level
 * Help:Resources by type
 * Help:Resources by subject

Current system
Currently, our system of "tagging" resources is through categories. Our search facility has been heavily (and rightly) criticised. Is there a better way? How can we improve people's ability to find specific resources?

Needs
Wikiversity needs a way for people to tag resources so that they can be searched for by type, level, subject, context, and other criteria. Something like OERCommons's advanced search would be good.

Ideas

 * Semantic MediaWiki - a MediaWiki extension which embeds semantic elements into links as relationships.
 * WiseWoman has been supervising a student who did a Masters project on building a metadata system for Wikiversity - apparently this project is finished, but there hasn't been any demonstration of or discussion about it.
 * Learning object metadata.

Resources

 * Wikipedia and the Semantic Web - The Missing Links - Paper from Wikimania 2005 about Wikimedia's semantic structure and categories - detailing work done on Semantic MediaWiki
 * Elements of the Dublin core metadata system.

Initatives out there

 * MELT - an initative by European Schoolnet (EUN) to improve methodologies of tagging content to maximise their utility and findability for educators. (See also Calibrate - another EUN initiative.)

Ideas from 2006
We started talking about this in June of '06. A metadata tag can be referenced to and filled in by people, scripts and bots. See the discussion at meta about this.