The ALA Core Metadata Standards Committee has developed a rubric to help information professionals evaluate metadata schemas in order to select one that would best fit the needs of a given project. The first official version of the Metadata Schema Assessment Framework is now available via the ALA Institutional Repository.
The Committee identified several criteria that can be used to evaluate metadata schemas, including: ease of access, applicability, completeness, consistent representation, interoperability, understandability, rate of adoption, maintenance, and transparency, bias & engagement.
The rubric also contains levels for assessing the extent that a given schema meets each criterion from lowest (e.g., minimally acceptable) to highest (value added or most complex).
If you work with metadata, the committee welcomes your feedback, including how useful this rubric would be in selecting a schema in your daily work, suggestions for improvement, and case studies of the framework in real-life applications.
Feedback can be given by submitting comments and questions through a Google form.
Feedback on the framework will be collected and reviewed continuously by the ALA Core Metadata Standards Committee and will be considered and incorporated in future versions of the framework.
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Marilyn Chin-Gosset
Reference & Instruction Librarian
CT State Community College - Gateway
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