COMP3410/COMP6341 IT in E-Commerce
Tutorial : Metadata

The aim of this tutorial is to get you familiar with Metadata. You can attempt these in your assigned tut/lab time, or at a time convenient to you. You are encouraged to discuss the questions, and solutions to them, with your fellow students. You are also strongly encouraged to initiate discussions on the E-Commerce.talk forum if you get stuck or if you find anything interesting. Any feedback is always welcome.

  1. Write a Dublin Core metadata description with HTML 4.0 Meta-tags for a document that stores the following information:

    URL: http://www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html

    Author: National Archives of Australia

    Rights: Copyright © Commonwealth of Australia 2000

    Title: Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) introduction

    Subject: information management; information retrieval; business records

    Description: This page provides access to information about AGLS, including the AGLS manual and advice on implementing AGLS for Commonwealth agencies.

    Language: English

    Coverage: Australia

    Creation date: 30/03/00

    Do this in your favourite text editor. You may be able to save some typing by cutting and pasting the data from this page.

  2. Use DSTC's Reg or Reggie metadata tools to create AGLS metadata for the above. Add at least one AGLS qualifier (such as a Scheme) to refine the semantics of the element set. Export the metadata (to a web page; the email export doesn't work) in both HTML 4.0 and RDF formats.

    Note: Both the Reg and Reggie metadata tools allow you to create AGLS metadata for the above. Reggie provides more functionality, but uses a Java applet, which may not work through some firewalls. Try Reg if you can;t get Reggie to work.

    Don't try to load the metadata you created in Question 1; it won't work. You'll have to type it again. The point of the question is to compare Dublin Core and AGLS, seeing how you can make the metadata record more precise by using the extra AGLS features like qualifiers and controlled vocabularies.

  3. Compare the metadata you generated with that in the actual document. URL: http://web.archive.org/web/20070115201425/www.naa.gov.au/recordkeeping/gov_online/agls/summary.html

  4. Write an order in EDIFACT XML format for the following order:

    Message: 128576
Date: 12 September 1998
ContractNo: 652744 Line = 112
Buyer (EAN): 5012345678900
Supplier (EAN): 6012345678900
Carrier: 7012345678900
DeliverTo: The SGML Centre
Address: 29 Oldbury Orchard
Churchdown
Glos. GL3 2PU
Item:
ID: 8012345678900
Quantity: 90 on 12 October 1998
Quantity: 60 on 15 October 1998

ItemID: 9012345678900
Description: Readi-Mixed Cement, Grade 2
Quantity 900 KGM

    The document type definition for this message is located at Order.dtd. Validate your XML file against this DTD. Think about the flexibility of this DTD. Is your XML file identical to the person sitting next to you (or with the "CEN/ISSS Document Instance")? Why not? Do they both represent all the data faithfully? How easy would it be to write software to process these orders automatically?

  5. The Federal Court of Australia is working out how lawyers can exchange information about some of the large number of electronic documents now used in court cases (called "e-Discovery"). But being lawyers, they have used a lot of words to describe what is an information processing system. This will make for a lot of work for the people who have to implement it and leave room for incompatibility between systems used by different law firms.

    Don't try and read it in detail, but quickly look at: "Advanced Document Management Protocol (Example)", Federal Court of Australia, Revision 0.18, 30 June 2008:

    1. What are some of the problems with the metadata and document format specifications of this system?
    2. How would you improve the speculation?
    3. What standards would you suggest the court specify for particular metadata elements and document formats? Give some examples.

    If you don't know where to start, look though some of the standards mentioned in the lecture notes.

  6. COMP6341 students: The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) issued a Request for Tender for "Provision of Desktop, LAN, Helpdesk and Midrange Services" last week. The 278 page tender document includes extensive and detailed environmental requirements.

    Tenderers are required to provide the information specified in the IEEE 1680 environmental standard. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) is a spreadsheet manufacturers can use to fill in to rate their products and then upload the results to a central database. The information can be displayed as a web page and can be exported as a spreadsheet.

    But less than a thousand computer products are listed by EPEAT. Many more have not been rated using their system and manfacturers may also have to list their products under schemes in Europe and elsewhere. Manufacturers already provide product information on their web sites. Having to supply data in different formats to different rating organisations is an addition burden.

    Look at the EPEAT entry for the DELL OptiPlex 745 Energy Smart:

    1. What are some options for marking up the information about the DELL OptiPlex 745 in an HTML and/or XML format, so it could be read by the general public as a web page and also automatically input the databases of different rating bodies? The web page should similar to the ones Dell supplies, but have metadata embedded in it.
    2. What are the benefits of different ways to mark up the metadata?