Metadata is well recognized as one of the foundational factors in archiving and long-term preservation of digital resources. There are several metadata standards for records management, archives and preservation, e.g. ISAD(G), EAD, AGRkMs, PREMIS, and OAIS. Consideration is important in selecting appropriate metadata standards in order to design metadata schema that meet the requirements of a particular archival system. Interoperability of metadata with other systems should be considered in schema design.
In our previous research, we have presented a feature analysis of metadata standards by identifying the primary resource lifecycle stages where each standard is applied. We have clarified that any single metadata standard cannot cover the whole records lifecycle for archiving and preservation.
Through this feature analysis, we analyzed the features of metadata in the whole records lifecycle, and we clarified the relationships between the metadata standards and the stages of the lifecycle. In the previous study, more detailed analysis was left for future study. This paper proposes to analyze the metadata schemas from the viewpoint of tasks performed in the lifecycle. Metadata schemas are primarily defined to describe properties of a resource in accordance with the purposes of description, e.g. finding aids, records management, preservation and so forth. In other words, the metadata standards are resource- and purpose-centric, and the resource lifecycle is not explicitly reflected in the standards. There are no systematic methods for mapping between different metadata standards in accordance with the lifecycle.
This paper proposes a method for mapping between metadata standards based on the tasks contained in the resource lifecycle. We first propose a Task Model to clarify tasks applied to resources in each stage of the lifecycle. This model is created as a task-centric model to identify features of metadata standards and to create mappings among elements of those standards. It is important to categorize the elements in order to limit the semantic scope of mapping among elements and decrease the number of combinations of elements for mapping.
This paper proposes to use 5W1H (Who, What, Why, When, Where, How) model to categorize the elements. 5W1H categories are generally used for describing events, e.g. news articles. As performing a task on a resource causes an event and metadata elements are used in the event, we consider that the 5W1H categories are adequate to categorize the elements. By using these categories, we determine the features of every element of metadata standards which are AGLS, AGRkMS, PREMIS, EAD, OAIS and an attribute set extracted from DPC decision flow. Then, we perform the element mapping between the standards, and find the relationships between the standards.
In this study, we defined a set of terms for each of 5W1H categories, which typically appear in the definition of an element, and used those terms to categorize the elements. For example, if the definition of an element includes the terms such as person and organization that mean a subject which contribute to create, modify a resource the element is categorized into the Who category. A single element can be categorized into one or more 5W1H categories. Thus, we categorized every element of the metadata standards using the 5W1H model, and then, we carried out mapping among the elements in each category.
We conclude that the Task Model provides a new viewpoint for metadata schemas and is useful to help us understand the features of metadata standards for records management and archives. The 5W1H model, which is defined based on the Task Model, provides us a core set of categories to semantically classify metadata elements from the viewpoint of an event caused by a task.