Interesting piece on OSOpinons.com on the difference between Open Source and open standards. People often get caught up with the promise of open standards, and confuse that with the purpose of Open Source.
To me, the real goal isn’t Open Source. That’s a means to an end, often enabling and facilitating adoption of open standards. The real goal is the creation, adoption, and implementation of open standards, which don’t tie anyone to any particular piece of software or data.
I’ve just posted a document I’m working on, proposing a solution to storing thumbnail references, as well as various other formats of the same learning object, within a single LOM metadata record/document.
The Coles’ Notes version is this: We need a place to store locations for thumbnail images for a learning object, as well as various formats (QuickTime, Real, Windows Media, etc…) without having to duplicate the LOM. The current solution would be to create separate LOMs for each format, or create a content package. Neither solution really addresses the problem.
Norm Friesen just sent an email to the ICAAP Standards list, pointing out the newly revamped CanCore Metadata Guidelines, including a searchable utility (which looks quite useful, but barfed all over some of my queries…)
I just took a quick look at their interpretation of the Technical element, and it still seems to have some issues…
For instance, it still doesn’t address multiplicity. Is it best to have 3 technical elements, one for each format of a resource (a GIF, a JPG, a TIF, each with their own sizes and locations - this is my personal preference), or mashing them all into one technical element (with multiple formats, locations, etc… which one points to which?).
I moved offices almost 2 weeks ago. A whopping 10 feet west of where I was before. I then took a week off, and fully expected my phone line to be moved (among other things) when I got back.
Long story short, it wasnāt. I just borrowed a phone to plug into my old pod and found a whole whack of voicemail messages waiting for me. The phone on my desk sits dumbly, having no idea that itās supposed to be working for me.
Itās coming along nicelyā¦ I now have an installer that copies over the WebObjects application and supporting resources, creates the FrontBase database and populates it, and almost creates the MySQL metadata repository databaseā¦ I have the MySQL stuff working as shell scripts, but it doesnāt want to play nicely when embedded in the installer.
After I wrestle the MySQL script into submission, I get to turn my gaze onto the WebObjects application configuration - ideally it should set up the app, start it, and have it automatically restart if the box is kicked over.
Solution #2: IMS Vocabulary Definition Exchange. A new project (I hadnāt heard of it until today, thanks to the CETIS article) that is aimed at defining a way of describing vocabularies to do just thisā¦ Poodle is a Dog is an Animal is Carbon Basedā¦
Hierarchical bits of related, structured vocabulary data. This could be quite useful. The ALOHA team had to roll their own solution to this a while back. Maybe the next version will be standards based?
Isn’t that sort of what software like CAREO is supposed to do for the learning object realm? That’s my perception of the reason for CAREO even existing - let The People create and publish their stuff as learning objects, and let The People find/use/share/discuss them via the software…
Iām working on an installer for the CAREO application, its supporting framework and other bits of data and documents. Iām using the Apple PackageMaker, which does all of the fancy installers for the iApps etcā¦
Itās looking like it will be brain-dead easy to install (and upgrade) a CAREO installation, once I figure out how to write the scripts to automate database population. Very cool.
At least on MacOSX, it will be REALLY easy to set up an instance of CAREO. I should be able to reproduce much of this using plain-old shell scripts for lesser platforms.
A quick reminder for myself. There is more to metadata than can be described in XML syntax. XML is just text. Text isnāt always the best way of describing something.
Metadata != XML Metadata > XML
Iām hoping in the next version of the software-formerly-known-as-CAREO that we can get away from this āXML Metadata is the centre of the universeā philosophy. King has demonstrated some freaking amazing things heās planning to do with metadata/searching/discovery, some of which have nothing to do with text. Hence, they have nothing to do with XMLā¦
Here’s a quick link to a discussion of PHP vs. Java. Sure, that’s much like a discussion of Coke vs. Pepsi, or Mr. T vs. Hulk Hogan, but some interesting points are raised. Note, though, that Raible is a hard-core Java guy, but many of the comments come from hard-core PHP folks.
David Wiley talks about something called the “Reusability Paradox” of learning objects. It’s one of the fundamental issues in dealing with learning objects, and basically boils down to this (grossly oversimplified Coles Notes version of Wiley’s paper):
“If a learning object is useful in a particular context, by definition it is not reusable in a different context. If a learning object is reusable in many contexts, it isn’t particularly useful in any.”