This document describes a constructivist grounded theory approach to addressing semantic metadata interoperability issues in digital libraries. It discusses challenges like differing naming conventions, identification practices, and terminology used across systems. Bottom-up, qualitative methods are proposed over top-down standards to account for diverse cultural interpretations. Interviews with librarians, researchers and students revealed that controlled vocabularies often fail to represent local perspectives and that semantic interoperability requires a social constructivist approach.

1. A Constructivist Grounded Theory Approach to
Semantic Metadata Interoperability
in
Digital Libraries
Getaneh Alemu
Penny Ross
Brett Stevens
The 3rd Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries International Conference, Athens, Greece
24th-27th May 2011

2. BACKGROUND
• Describes, explains, locates, collocates
• Facilitates retrieval, use, management
(Chan & Zeng, 2006; Day, 2003a, 2003b; Duval, Hodgins, Sutton, & Weibel, 2002; Nilsson, 2010; NISO, 2004; Weinberger, 2007)

3. BACKGROUND

4. THE IRONY ABOUT STANDARDS
http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/turner/meta/english/metamap.html

5. METADATA INTEROPERABILITY
http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

6. METADATA INTEROPERABILITY
• Sharing semantically compatible information
• Managing in semantically compatible ways
• Enabling users to perform desired tasks
(Rothenberg, 2008)

7. CAUSES OF INTEROPERABILITY PROBLEMS
•Naming
• Identification
• Constraints
•Terminological
(Haslhofer & Klas, 2010)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/apple/clusters/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Adam-mange.jpg

8. CAUSES OF INTEROPERABILITY PROBLEMS

9. ARBITRARINESS IN „OBJECTIVE‟ SYSTEMS
Dewey Decimal Classification

10. INTEROPERABILITY LEVELS
Based on (Haslhofer & Klas, 2010)

11. INTEROPERABILITY SOLUTIONS

12. USING SINGLE STANDARD
• Very good for technical interoperability
• Good for structural interoperability
• Not feasible for semantic interoperability

13. METADATA MAPPING
(Based on Chan & Zeng, 2006)

14. SCHEMA DERIVATION
• Deriving lighter schema from a complex one
MODS MARC- MARC-
XML Lite
Problem: Retains the requirements of the original schema
(Chan & Zeng, 2006)

15. APPLICATION PROFILES
• Mix and match solution
• Reusing metadata elements
• Schema level solution
• Requires to adopt specifications of original schema
(Baker, Dekkers, Heery, Patel, & Salokhe, 2008; Chan & Zeng, 2006; Heery & Patel, 2000; Hillmann & Phipps, 2007)

16. METADATA REGISTRIES
• Publishing/exposing metadata schemas
• Schema level solution
• Does not deal with metadata values
(Chan & Zeng, 2006)

17. XML
http://www.futerra.co.uk/blog/336

18. SEMANTIC WEB TECHNOLOGIES
• RDF
• RDFS
• OWL

19. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• What are the views and experiences of LIS researchers, librarians
and users in using metadata?
• What solutions do they consider practical for facilitating information
exchange, information sharing, and data integration?
• How much useful do they consider top-down vs bottom up
approaches and Semantic Web and Web 2.0 technologies in relation
to semantic metadata interoperability?

20. PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE
(Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Crotty, 1998, p. 42)

21. GROUNDED THEORY METHOD
• Glaserian
• Straussian
• Constructivist
( Bryant & Charmaz, 2007; Charmaz, 2006; Glaser, 2001; Mills, Bonner, & Francis, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1998)

22. GROUNDED THEORY METHOD FOR SEMANTIC
INTEROPERABILITY
• Scant use of theories in LIS
• Semantic interoperability is a qualitative concern
(Andersen & Skouvig, 2006; Floridi, 2000; Hjorland, 2000; Allan, 2007; Lehmann, 2010; Haslhofer & Klas, 2010, p.17)

23. DATA COLLECTION
• Unstructured, in-depth interviews
• Three categories of participants
• Choice of Research Site (Phase-I study)
• 2 lecturers, 1 PhD researcher and 8 MSc students

24. DATA ANALYSIS USING NVIVO 8

25. PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS FROM PHRASE-I
Metadata simplicity versus complexity
http://www.arkshelving.com/Picsed/pages/SOUTH%20COUNTRY%20OPAC_jpg.htm

26. ASSUMPTION OF USER KNOWLEDGE

27. PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS: OPAC
“OPAC is the biggest innovation for libraries that ever happened”
participant

28. THE PROBLEMS
• By their very nature, cultural information objects convey different meanings for
diverse user groups, and hence, can be interpreted variously
• Human beings are highly unlikely to agree on a singular, top-down and
hierarchical classification of objects
• Unfortunately, most current standards tend to adhere to what is known as the
ontologically and objectively true viewpoint which substantially fails to capture
and represent local and/or regional perspectives and interpretations.
“The way Asians describe Asian art is quite different from the way a Westerner does.”
participant

29. CONCLUSION
Due to the very nature of the diversity inherent in institutional
and cultural interpretations as well as differences in the usage of
terms in metadata vocabularies, semantic metadata
interoperability issues can better be addressed by adopting a
social constructivist philosophical approach and by utilising a
constructivist grounded theory methodology.

30. Thank You!
Questions?
Getaneh.Alemu@port.ac.uk