METADATA CHALLENGES IN INTRODUCING THE GLOBAL IEEE LEARNING OBJECT METADATA (LOM) STANDARD IN A LOCAL ENVIRONMENT

crosswalk, metadata challenges Abstract: The world of closed Learning Management Systems (LMS) is being replaced by open systems for sharing and reusing digital Learning Objects (LOs) between users, courses, institutions and countries. This poses new challenges in describing these LOs with detailed and correct metadata. This information background is needed for querying services to perform accurate queries for LO retrieval. In this paper we present metadata specific challenges when converting from a local LMS with proprietary metadata schema to a global metadata schema. We have uncovered extensive LO description possibilities based on the existing, local LMS, registered metadata, its LO types and the local context. Files can contain extensive metadata descriptions, though require special attention. We have confirmed that technologies developed as crosswalks are valid for usage in this projects for a one-time metadata transferral. However, transferring of all local metadata elements can result in incompatibility issues with other LMSs. This, even when keeping with the global metadata schema.