The role of metadata in the CUBER system

The goal of the CUBER-project is to develop a system that supports learners in searching higher education courses from European universities. The metadata elements attached to course descriptions play a central role in the system. However, the process of specifying the appropriate metadata elements is problematic: the elements should be thorough enough to allow a wide range of searches, and on the other hand, entering the elements should not overly burden the course provider. The metadata specification of CUBER is based on the emerging LOM standard of IEEE, but CUBER has introduced some modifications to the original LOM schema. Nevertheless, special attention was paid to making the CUBER metadata conform to the LOM standard for the interoperability issues. In this paper, the metadata model introduced in the CUBER project is presented. In particular, the recognized metadata requirements are analysed, and the relationships of the developed model to other relevant projects and standardization activities are discussed.