Read LRMI data for educational resources

rickyhow
Is there a site translator to read Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) data?
  • aurimas
    There is not, but I don't really see what metadata from LRMI Zotero would be interested in. With the exception of useRightsURL, none of the other metadata seems relevant. http://www.lrmi.net/the-specification

    Adding support for more applicable schema.org metadata is planned.
  • rickyhow
    A teacher prepares a lesson by searching for learning resources that are aligned with the relevant Common Core Standards. This is possible since LRMI data is indexed by the large search engines (it's an extension to Schema.org). Discovery is not an issue.

    The issue is that the teacher now needs to manage the resources - and there are not many personal/workgroup tools that can digest LRMI data yet (yes there are large scale LRMI aggregators like The Learning Registry). I figure Zotero would be ideal for helping teachers collect and organize these learning resources to create more engaging courses.
  • adamsmith
    what Aurimas is wondering is -- how do any of those fields map to existing Zotero fields? If there's not a good fit between what Zotero does and what LRMI contains, Zoteor is probably not the right tool for the job.
    While field extensions are planned to some degree (including custom types), Zotero is mainly going to remain a research tool with data categories and import focused on those categories.
  • rickyhow
    I believe there is a good deal of overlap between existing Zotero fields and LRMI attributes embedded in the resource being described.

    LRMI extends schema.org's CreativeWork with additional properties like EducationalAlignment, educationalUse, timeRequired, typicalAgeRange, interactivityType, learningResourceType, userRightdUrl and isBasedOnUrl.

    learningResourceType would be equivalent to Zotero Item Type.

    Now the cool part: It could become a course authoring tool by using the Zotero Plug In with your favorite word processor. Instead of inserting citations to resources it would insert the resource itself.
  • adamsmith
    right, aurimas linked to those additional properties. Maybe I'm lacking imagination, but I don't really see how those map to Zotero? I really don't mean to be negative--I'm happy where Zotero is useful beyond its core intended mission--but we also should be realistic about mission creep.

    And while Dan has made clear that he sees Zotero moving towards some more flexibility in available fields, we can only _import_ to standardized fields, and those should remain pretty focused on bibliographic data.
  • dstillman
    I'll share some of our thoughts on the technical details after API syncing is done, but my general vision for custom item types is that it will be possible, within specific communities, to have shared item types and associated translators for relevant sites that can import data into those types. rickyhow's example seems like a good example of that.

    Plenty of functionality would still need to be done through plugins, but I think there are some classes of fields (dates, geographic locations, etc.) that we could add smarter handing of and that could be the building blocks for these types. (Inserting into a word processor, as rickyhow wants, would of course be trickier, since this gets well outside the realm of CSL.)

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