PALS Metadata and Interoperability programme (phase 2)
The JISC Information Environment (IE) will provide a range of services, tools and mechanisms to enable colleges and universities to exploit fully the value of online resources and services for teaching, learning and research. One of the main drivers behind the IE is the need for more seamless ways to discover quality resources. The Further and Higher Education community need to be able to discover resources in simpler and more integrated ways than currently available.
Publishers and aggregators have an opportunity to exploit this market by using protocols and standards that will enable seamless searching of their resources. Working closely with the Publisher and Library/Learning Solutions (PALS) Metadata and Interoperability working group, JISC funded the first group of PALS Metadata and Interoperability projects in 2003. This initiative was very successful and explored a range of issues related to publisher adoption of metadata standards and protocols.
The new group of PALS 2 projects builds on the work of PALS 1 and take forward the interoperability agenda between the JISC IE and publishers in a collaborative way. A call for proposals for these projects was issued under JISC ITT: Publisher Metadata and Interoperability projects II.
Aims and Objectives
The aim of the PALS Metadata and Interoperability initiative is to facilitate collaboration between the HE/FE and publishing communities and develop practical solutions for metadata and interoperability. The objectives of the PALS 2 projects are to:
- explore the issues around presenting content from a range of sources by developing interoperability demonstrators
- investigate the issues surrounding the integration of publisher-initiated standards into the JISC IE
- develop tools and guidelines to simplify the effective adoption of metadata and interoperability standards
- take forward rights expression standards, for example by building implementations of them in particular contexts or by mapping between them.
Outcomes and Achievements
The pages on Metadata and Interoperability summarise outcomes and achievements of the PALS programmes and this successful collaboration between publishers and libraries. There are pages summarising key themes covered by the programmes, like disclosing journals, electronic expression of licensing terms, integrating user enviornments, and library catalogues. There are pages on each project with links to the many useful resources each has created, and pages on the standards covered by the programmes. This synthesis of outcomes on metadata and interoperability will be of interest to publishers, libraries, intermediaries and solutions vendors who wish to make more effective use of standards.
In December 2006, the programme held a very successful seminar, Discovery and Access: Standards and the Information Chain. The seminar covered the publisher and library perspective on standards and the information chain, new developments, innovative applications, and a panel discussion on the future. The web site includes a summary of the seminar and discussion, and the programme has links to all presentations given.
In March 2007, an article on the PALS 2 programme was published in the UK Serials Group journal Serials. The article outlines the aims of the publisher-library collaboration on standards and summarises the work of the eight PALS 2 projects. Follow the link from the reference below.