Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:198285 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to address the issue of poor quality of metadata records describing educational content in Learning Object Repositories (LORs). Through this, it aims to improve the discoverability of learning objects in such LORs through a structured process that supports metadata creation. Design/methodology/approach -This paper presents a proposed metadata quality assessment certification process for LORs. The process was designed as a generic approach that may be customized to fit various application domains. Findings -Initial results from the application of the process in the context of a specific LOR report an improvement of the quality of about 11,000 metadata records. More specifically, metadata completeness for all metadata elements used in the repository under examination was significantly improved from 30 percent to 85 percent.Research limitations/implications -The main limitation of the findings is that they come from the application of the proposed process on a relatively small repository, which does not allow safe generalizations without further experimental study in bigger ones where resources and requirements scale up. Practical implications -This paper addresses implications for the development of a repository in the educational domain, identifying issues related to the metadata application profile, the support to domain experts and the mechanisms that may be put in place to support metadata creation. Originality/value -The value and also the originality of the approach presented lies within the fact the proposed approach quantifies issues related to metadata creation and management by studying actions and perceptions of stakeholders who are involved in the repository lifecycle.

Abstract. Metadata specifications and standards serve as the basis for creating metadata application profiles that are particularly adapted to the needs of specific applications. The process of developing such application profiles is usually an iterative one, involving several stakeholders such as technical experts and domain experts. In this process, evaluation should have a pivotal role, by engaging methods and instruments that can ensure that the interests and needs of all stakeholders are reflected in the produced application profile. This paper presents how evaluation is dealt with, in a particular case study of developing a metadata application profile for learning resources. It particularly puts emphasis on the way the domain experts have evaluated the elements of the application profile, on dimensions related to their envisaged usefulness, comprehensibility, and ease to use during content annotation. The methodology followed, the pilot evaluation experiment with the domain experts, and the way the results have been incorporated in the application profile elaboration process, are discussed.

This paper introduces a Web-based tool that has been developed to facilitate learning object annotation in agricultural learning repositories with IEEE LOM-compliant metadata. More specifically, it presents how an application profile of the IEEE LOM standard has been developed for the description of learning objects on organic agriculture and agroecology. Then, it describes the design and prototype development of the Organic.Edunet repository tool: a Web-based for annotating learning objects on organic agriculture and agroecology, organizing them in using a portfolio-like user interface in a learning repository, and then federating this repository with a network of agricultural learning repositories.

QC 20111207

Metadata quality presents a challenge faced by many digital repositories. There is a variety of proposed quality assurance frameworks applied in repositories that are deployed in various contexts. Although studies report that there is an improvement of the quality of the metadata in many of the applications, the transfer of a successful approach from one application context to another has not been studied to a satisfactory extent. This article presents the empirical results of the application of a metadata quality assurance process that has been developed and successfully applied in an educational context (learning repositories) to 2 different application contexts to compare results with the previous application and assess its generalizability. More specifically, it reports results from the adaptation and application of this process in a library context (institutional repositories) and in a cultural context (digital cultural repositories). Initial empirical findings indicate that content providers seem to be gaining a better understanding of metadata when the proposed process is put in place and that the quality of the produced metadata records increases.