Europeana has published a new case study, looking at two initiatives that have found EDM (Europeana Data Model) a useful resource in teaching professionals and students about metadata and linked open data. One describes a project at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), to teach library staff about linked data in order to apply it locally; the second is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) offered by the University of North Carolina (UNC) about organizing and discovering data.
A group of academic library staff from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, established a project to learn about linked data and evaluate its application in the area of their digital collections. The main objectives were to:
- “Study the feasibility of developing a common process that would allow the conversion of our collection records into linked data, preserving their original expressivity and richness
- Publish data from our collections as linked data to improve discoverability and connections with other related data sets on the Web.”
A study group of library staff used a series of workshops to learn the underlying principles and concepts of linked data. They then moved on to applying these to their data sets to create a set of RDF triples for publication. A survey of literature resulted in the choice of EDM as the data model (EDM is designed for use with digital objects in the cultural heritage sector so the content to be described was similar).
EDM was used to demonstrate aspects of metadata records as part of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) run by the School of Information and Library Science from UNC at Chapel Hill. The course was called “Metadata: Organizing and Discovering Information” and was taught by Dr Jeffrey Pomerantz, Associate Professor and the Director of Undergraduate Studies.
These case studies are published at: http://pro.europeana.eu/learningcontext-edm