Saturday, January 12

Module 1a:  Course overview

Module 1b:  Nature and characteristics of information objects

• Topics:  what is an object?  How do you define it?  What are examples in past and present?  How do you provide access to information objects?  What is the history behind all this?
• Exercise 1 (Part 2):  Information objects and their description

Saturday, January 19

Module 2a:  Information systems

• Topics:  Why do we use metadata?  How do we use it?  How is it integrated into systems?
• Exercise 2a:  Information retrieval systems

Module 2b:  Modeling information objects and relationships

• Topics:  How do you represent information objects?  What are ways of showing relationships?  Databases vs. IR systems design, modeling techniques and principles
• Exercise 2b:  Exploring RDF

Saturday, January 26

Module 3a:  Ontologies

• Topics:  Discuss definitions, characteristics, and building, and implementations of ontologies.  Guest lecturer, Sharon Bolding, Dipiti.

Module 3b:  Metadata standards and schemas

• Topics:  What are standards for?  What are schemas? What are some examples?   
• Exercise 3:  Exploring metadata schemas

Saturday, February 2

Module 4a:  Application profiles

• Topics:  Examples of application profiles. 
• Mid-Term Assignment Part 1:  Create a metadata schema for the MSIM website.  This is the first installment of your final project.

Module 4b:  Description and access

• Topics:  Descriptive metadata- standards, models and approaches, history.  Application in web/database environments. 
• Exercise 4:  Administrative metadata/Authority control

Saturday, February 9

Module 5a:  Authority control and Encoding Schemes

• Topics:   Rules for describing entities, ways to manage these lists, ways to use them for control
• Mid-Term Assignment Part 2:  Define your authority control for your project

Module 5b:  Subject analysis and Subject Indexing

• Topics: What is something about?  derived vs. assigned, controlled vs. uncontrolled indexing.  What are indexing systems?  What are principles of design?  What are limitations and restrictions?
• Exercise 5:  Derived and assigned indexing

Saturday, February 16

Module 6a:  Introduction to controlled vocabularies

• Topics:  What are the differences, how are they used?
• Exercise 6a:  Exploring controlled vocabularies

Module 6b:  Social tagging  .

• Topics:  How does social tagging fit with all this?  Where is it useful and how can it be leveraged for better access?  What do we know about how it works?  Guest lecturers Michael Braly, Adobe and Geoff Froh, Densho Foundation
• Mid-Term Assignment due at beginning of class

Saturday, February 23

Module 7a: Creating controlled vocabularies

• Topics:  Determining concepts, general principles.  
• Exercise 7a:  Constructing controlled vocabularies
• Final Assignment:  Begin creating controlled subject vocabularies for your project. 

Module 7b:  Semantic factoring and semantic relationships

• Topics:  How do you extract terms from documents and users?  How do you organize them for a controlled vocabulary?
• Exercise 7b:  Semantic factoring and relationships

Saturday, March 1

Module 8a:  Facet analysis

• Topics:  How are facets constructed and used in information retrieval systems?
• Exercise 8a:  Facet analysis

Module 8b:  Practical example of metadata in action

• Mercy Corps Spreadsheets:  1, 2
• Topics:  Metadata in action.  Getty Images retrieval system.  Guest lecture.  Paul Garrison, Getty Images.

Saturday, March 8

Module 9a:  Construction and use of classification schemes

• Topics:  Enumeration techniques, classification schemes
• Exercise 9a:  Applications of classification schemes

Module 9b:  Issues in classification

• Topics:  multi-lingual issues, accessibility issues, cultural issues in subject access.
• Exercise 9b:  Challenges in classification

Saturday, March 15

Module 10a:  Information displays and arrangement

• Topics:  How do you use metadata and vocabularies to display information for users?  
• Exercise 10:  Exploring alternate information displays

Module 10b:  Course wrapup and closing discussion

• Final Assignment due at beginning of class