Metadata Standards for Educational Resources

In the 1990s, recognition of the potential economies of reusing educational materials spawned the development of metadata standards for sharing and storing learning objects. Metadata is data that describes a physical or electronic resource and can be used to manage collections of documents, images, and other information in a repository such as an archive or museum. Some metadata elements, such as title, description, subject, and keywords, are similar to those that libraries use to catalog their holdings. Other elements, such as the uniform resource identifier (URI), are specific to a digital, Web-based environment. Metadata can be stored in a digital library or repository that provides services to search or browse for educational materials. The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and IEEE Learning Object Metadata are two popular metadata standards that facilitate cataloging, searching, and reuse of such resources.