Facilitating E-learning with a MARC to IEEE LOM metadata crosswalk application

Abstract

E-learning has the potential to provide the flexibility and wider access that is required for lifelong learning, but creating the digital resources needed for online course delivery requires a considerable investment and substantial effort. There are some pre-existing learning objects available for reuse in the design of educational events. However, supplying the metadata for each standard becomes repetitious, time-consuming, and tedious because of the diversity of learning objects, and the continuing growth in the number, size, and complexity of the content metadata standards. In order to minimize the amount of time needed to create and maintain the metadata and to maximize its usefulness to the widest possible community of users, there is a demand for developing crosswalks between different metadata standards. This paper introduces a crosswalk development that converts MARC (MAchine-Readable Cataloging) metadata to IEEE LOM (Learning Object Metadata) and investigates the issues involved in the crosswalk development.