DiscoverEd Metadata

This document outlines the format in which ccLearn would like to receive syndication feeds for the data that will go into it's OER database.

The data must be supplied in an Atom or RSS format. These are two very well documented XML formats, and they are commonly implemted out-of-the-box by many content management systems.

Presently, ccLearn is looking for the following data:

• Link: Full URL of the referenced resource.
• Title: A brief descriptive title for the resource.
• Summary: A relatively short summary/synopsis of the resource.
• License: This should be a URL to the license e.g. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ph/.
• Grade level (cc:gradelevel): What grade or level this material is suitable for.
• Language (cc:lang): The language of the referenced resource (not of the your site).
• Subject (cc:subject): A more formal subject name e.g. Mathematics.

Because some of these fields do not have native Atom or RSS element definitions, we suggest that they be embedded as tags. In order for us to be able to recognize these within the feed, the tag content should be of the format

cc:<field>:

For example, the tag for Language would become something like:

cc:license:es

Another example for Grade level could be:

cc:gradelevel:5-7

The "cc:" specific fields should be embedded precisely as specified above in parentheses:

• Subject: cc:subject:
• Grade level: cc:gradelevel:
• Language: cc:lang:

Embedding license data

Since the licensing of a resource is expected to be conveyed via URL, we can leverage the Atom <link> element. However we must markup the link element so as to identify is as a license URL. This is accomplished with adding an the attribute rel="license" to the <link> element. For example:

<link rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/" />

Atom 1.0 example

Here is a sample, one entry Atom 1.0 feed which implements the guidelines above.

<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <id>http://www.oercommons.org/cc/</id>
  <title>OER Commons - CC Atom Feed</title>
  <updated>2008-01-16T12:00:00Z</updated>
  <link href="http://www.oercommons.org/cc/atom.xml" />
  <entry>
    <id>tag:oersite.org,2007-10-15:/math/101</id>
    <title>Math 101</title>
    <updated>2007-10-15T12:00:00Z</updated>
    <link href="http://oersite.org/math/101" />
    <summary>Basic mathematics for 5th graders</summary>
    <link rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/" />
    <category term="cc:subject:Math" />
    <category term="cc:gradelevel:5-7" />
    <category term="cc:lang:en" />
  </entry>
</feed>

RSS 2.0 example

Here is a sample, one entry RSS 2.0 feed which implements the guidelines above.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>OER Web Site</title>
    <link>http://oersite.org/</link>
    <description>OER Aggregation Web Site</description>
    <pubDate>Wed, 16 Jan 2008 04:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
    <item>
      <title>Star City</title>
      <link>http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/2003/news-starcity.asp</link>
      <description></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 03 Jun 2003 09:39:21 GMT</pubDate>
  </channel>
</rss>