Qualified Dublin Core metadata for online journal articles

This paper describes an implementation utilizing preliminary Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) guidelines for expressing Qualified Dublin Core (DCQ) metadata in RDF/XML. Primary source objects used in this research were online versions of articles published in more than 50 academic journals in physics and engineering. Articles were encoded in well‐formed XML. While able to follow DCMI guidelines generally, it was necessary to augment DCQ semantics with local extensions in order to retain desired richness of semantics and structure. Also described is related work, including development of XML schema documents necessary to validate metadata and creation of a transforming XSL stylesheet to “dumb‐down” metadata to simple Dublin Core. As a case study, this research illustrates issues encountered when expressing real‐world DCQ metadata in RDF/XML. Significant initial investment of effort was required to develop RDF facilities and expertise. Pending more applications that exploit RDF, this investment may not be warranted in all domains.