Australian Digital Theses Program

Metadata Standards

Dublin Core metadata will be automatically generated out of the ADT Deposit form. This metadata will form the basis of the database of distributed digitised theses across the 7 participating institutions. The specific tool to gather and search this metadata will be the HotMeta - Metadata Search Engine developed by the Distributed Systems Technology Centre (DSTC) based at Queensland University. For product overview and specifications see: http://www.dstc.edu.au/RDU/HotMeta/

To follow are examples of the metadata generated as well as explanatory notes where appropriate. The bold type indicates the Deposit Form fields with the corresponding DC metadata element description following.

ADT metadata:

1. Title:
   <META NAME="DC.Title" CONTENT="A Framework for Conceptual Integration of Heterogeneous Databases">
   
   
2. Author:
   <META NAME="DC.Creator.personalName" CONTENT="Srinivasan, Uma">
   
   
3. Email:
   <META NAME="DC.Creator.personalName.address" CONTENT="Uma.Srinivasan@cmis.csiro.au">
   
   ***only if applicable.
   
   
4. Keywords:
   <META NAME="DC.Subject" CONTENT="heterogeneous databases">
   <META NAME="DC.Subject" CONTENT="metadata mining">
   <META NAME="DC.Subject" CONTENT="conceptual integration ">
   <META NAME="DC.Subject" CONTENT="intelligent integration">

5. *** the DC Element Subject (Keywords) is repeated to facilitate and enhance database searching. This means that the DC Element will be repeated with each separate keyword/subject or phrase (Value). It may be possible to repeat other elements if required in the future. This may require adding additional fields to the Deposit form which has flow on implications for the Deposit form software programs.

   Ideally this should be further augmented by Library of Congress Subject Headings (LSCH) as assigned by the cataloguer. The project will examine the possibility of adding these in the future. When LCSH subjects are assigned the DC Element meta string should look like the following:
   <META NAME="DC.Subject" "SCHEME=LCSH" CONTENT="Database management">
   

6. Abstract:
   <META NAME="DC.Description.abstract" CONTENT="Autonomy of operations combined with decentralised management of data has given rise to a number of heterogeneous databases or information systems within an enterprise. These systems are often incompatible in structure as well as content and hence difficult to integrate. This thesis investigates the problem of heterogeneous database integration, in order to meet the increasing demand for obtaining meaningful information from multiple databases without disturbing local autonomy. In spite of heterogeneity, the unity of overall purpose within a common application domain, nevertheless, provides a degree of semantic similarity which manifests itself in the form of similar data structures and common usage patterns of existing information systems. This work introduces a conceptual integration approach that exploits the similarity in meta level information in existing systems and performs metadata mining on database objects to discover a set of concepts common to heterogeneous databases within the same application domain.">
   
   
7. Date:
   ">
   *** this is the date that the Thesis is declared to have completed all the requirements for Award. Scheme is based on the W3C standard for date and time and includes ISO 8601. Further details: http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime
   
   
8. Language:
   <META NAME="DC.Language" "SCHEME=RFC1766" CONTENT="en">
   
   *** English will be the default language. In order to add another language the Deposit form will need to be amended to add another field. As theses will be predominantly in English, this will remain the default and the issue of other languages and the appropriate scheme to use will be investigated at a future date if necessary.
   
   
9. Institution/School:
   <META NAME="DC.Publisher" CONTENT="University of New South Wales. School of Computer Science and Engineering">
   
   
10. Copyright:
    <META NAME="DC.Rights" CONTENT="http://www.unsw.edu.au/help/disclaimer.html">
    <META NAME="DC.Rights" CONTENT="Copyright Uma Srinivasan">
    
    *** this should default to both the standard institution-wide disclaimer plus the author of the thesis .
    
    
11. URI ( ie; uri ):
    <META NAME="DC.Identifier" "SCHEME=URI" CONTENT="http://www.library.unsw.edu.au/~thesis/adt-root/uploads/adt-NUN1997.0001">
    
    *** this is the unique program generated URI for the thesis. The URI will be the one pointing to the public view of the thesis. The numbering system used will be the "adt-" immediately followed by the institution code as per the Australian Interlibrary Resource Sharing Directory, eg "NUN" immediately followed by the year the thesis is deposited followed by a running 4 digit number, eg "1997.0001" to make ../adt-NUN1997.0001 for the first thesis from UNSW for 1997. Examples of the other institutions would be:
    ../adt-ANU1997.0001 (Australian National University)
    ../adt-NU1997.0001 (University of Sydney)
    ../adt-QGU1997.0001 (Griffith University)
    ../adt-QU-1997.0001 (University of Queenland)
    ../adt-VU1997.0001 (University of Melbourne)
    ../adt-WCU1997.0001 (Curtin University of Technology)

The DC Identifier can be repeatable to enable the use of additional identifiers such as Library Call Numbers. The project will examine the possibility of adding existing Library Call Numbers in the future. The ADT project will also work with the NLA to test the development of an Australian URN resolver service.

The ADT HotMeta Search Engine will search the following: Title, Author, Subject, Description, Date, Language, Contributor and Identifier. ( see 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 above).

NB: see Notes on use of ADT deposit/submission form in relation to metadata.