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© 2000 Dublin Core Metadata Initiative 		Jon Mason & Stuart Sutton, Co-Chairs
Original Draft: 1 March 2000
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Draft Recommendation for an Audience Element

It was unanimously agreed among members of the Working Group at the face-to-face meeting that the capacity to designate various aspects of the intended users of an educational resource being described is an important function for networked information discovery and retrieval. Frequently, creators and publishers of resources explicitly state the type (class, category, target) of user for whom the resource is intended (designed, appropriate).

In the original discussions on the DC-Education list, it was generally agreed that there are two classes of audience necessary to the education/training domain. These two classes are related and include, in the first instance, those persons, organizations, and other forms of entities that administor or mediate access to the resource by the second class of audience–the “end” users for whose benefit the resource being described was designed–i.e., the ultimate beneficiaries.

At the face-to-face meeting, there was considerable discussion both in the breakout group looking at the audience proposal and in the subsequent full group session regarding the need for the qualifiers put forward in the original strawman proposal–i.e., the strawman “intermediary” and “beneficiary” qualifiers. There was some diversity of opinion with how best to proceed with qualifiers. As the table below denotes, it was generally (although not unanimously) agreed that there were instances where refinement of the proposed audience element is necessary. However, the breakout group and the generally agreed upon draft proposal changed the name of the strawman qualifier “intermediary” to “mediator.”

Two different implementations achieving the goal were identified and are set out below. Both implementations share the same justifications (set out at the bottom of this page).

Note: It was noted by the face-to-face participants that a general (unqualified) audience element might be useful in domains beyond education.

Draft Recommendation #1 for an Audience Element
(Element & Element Qualifier)

ELEMENT
NAME 		ELEMENT
QUALIFIER
NAME 		VALUE QUALIFIER
(CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES) 		DEFINITION
AUDIENCE     A category† of user for whom the resource is intended††.

†category, class, type, target
††intended, designed, appropriate

  MEDIATOR   An entity that mediates access to the resource.

Draft Recommendation

    ELEMENT:

    ELEMENT QUALIFIER:

    VALUE QUALIFIER(S):

Draft Recommendation #2 for an Audience Element
(Element & Value Qualifier(s))

ELEMENT
NAME 		ELEMENT
QUALIFIER
NAME 		VALUE QUALIFIER
(CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES) 		DEFINITION
AUDIENCE     A category† of user for whom the resource is intended††.

†category, class, type, target
††intended, designed, appropriate

Draft Recommendation

    ELEMENT:

    ELEMENT QUALIFIER(S):

    VALUE QUALIFIER(S):

    Justification for Draft Recommendations

    Justification Questions:

    1. Can “it” be clearly described?

      Yes.  “A category of user for whom the resource is intended.”

      Note #1: The “category” concept may be variably expressed as “class”, “type”, or “target”.

      Note #2: The “intended” language may be variably expressed as “designed” or “appropriate”. However, both “intended” and “designed” imply affirmative acts and judgments by the creator of the resource; while the term “appropriate” carries no such limiting connotation.

      Can the proposed element qualifier (“mediator”) be clearly described?  Yes.  “An entity that mediates access to the resource.”

    2. Is there a clear requirement for “it” in support of resource discovery in the education domain?

      Yes.  Web-based searches for educational resources are often framed in terms of the particular people for whom those resources are intended; e.g., research has shown that teachers frequently search for resources by grade level (research performed by the Gateway to Educational Materials project (GEM) based on content analysis of the AskERIC archives and survey research of end-users).

      Is there a clear requirement for the element qualifier (“mediator”)?  Yes.  The element refinement is required for many resources in order to distinguish between the primary audience (i.e., the ultimate beneficiary–usually a student or trainee) and a secondary audience that mediates access to the resource by the primary audience (i.e., usually a teacher or trainer).

      Example Searches:

      • A school library media specialist needs a lesson plan to teach information literacy to a 4th grade class that is learning about the Lewis and Clark Expedition in United States History.
      • An adult education literacy teacher is looking for resources to teach English to Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States.
      • A 10th grade teacher of gifted students is looking for a resource to challenge one of her students who is interested in robotic engineering.
    3. Does “it” support interoperability?

      Yes.  However, in order to promote interoperability widely, it will be useful to identify a common vocabulary of audience descriptors. The basis for such a vocabulary (or vocabularies) may be derived through analysis of: (1) existing vocabularies in current use in education-based applications; (2) existing education-specific audience descriptors in thesauri (e.g., the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors); and (3) in the emerging IEEE Learning Object Metadata standard specification. The definition of such a vocabulary (or vocabularies) would be an appropriate task of the DC-Education Working Group.

    4. Is “it” practical?

      Yes.  Current experience by existing projects in capturing audience information demonstrates that it is not difficult. This is particularly the case where the resource being described has been expressly intended or designed for a particular audience.

    5. Does “it” refine an existing element?

      No.  There have been discussions elsewhere (e.g., the Description Working Group) regarding audience as an element qualifier for one of the existing DCES. It appears that a general consensus exists that audience should not qualify an existing element.

    6. Are there alternative ways of implementing “it”?

      No.  Working Group members at the face-to-face meeting could think of no ways of achieving the goal except via a new audience element.

    7. Are there existing implementations or controlled vocabularies, etc., supporting “it”?

      Yes.  The Education Network Australia (EdNA) is in the process of implementing its vocabulary; GEM has an existing vocabulary as well as a repository of resources cataloged using audience characterisics; the IEEE LOM contains elements reaching some aspects of audience (which means that the GESTALT, ARIADNE, and IMS projects all provide for audience information); and, various education-specific thesauri contain audience classification descriptors (e.g., the Thesaurus of ERIC Descriptors and the NICEM Thesaurus, to name but a few).

    Revision History:

    7 March 2000:

    1. General edits to correct grammar and spelling.
    2. Additional language was added to reinforce the fact that while unanimous agreement on the need for an audience element was reached by the face-to-face group, there was some diversity of opinion regarding how best to proceed with qualifiers for the proposed audience element. The text was changed to reflect the less-than-unanimous decision on the single element qualifier (“mediator”) for the first alternative implementation.
    3. Edits to more clearly define the differences between the strawman proposal brought to the face-to-face meeting and the resulting draft recommendation.