Development:Chemistry Education controlled vocabulary
From ChemEd Collaborative
A controlled vocabulary for describing chemistry education digital materials is in use by the ChemEd DL and the Journal of Chemical Education. This controlled vocabulary is constantly under development as we find it necessary to add new terms to help describe new aspects of chemistry.
The current version of our controlled vocabulary is used to the categorize items in the JCE Digital Library and articles submitted to and published by the Journal of Chemical Education. We also use this same vocabulary to categorize the interests of JCE reviewers. By using terms in this same vocabulary to describe submissions and reviewer interest and expertise, we are better able to match reviewers with submissions for them to review. It is our intent to use this same vocabulary to describe the items in and the users of ChemEd DL in order to similarly provide a better means of matching users with those items of interest to them.
Our current vocabulary was constructed in order to make it usable by our contributors without them needing to be experts in cataloguing content. This is the rationale for the relatively broad and limited vocabulary now in use. We realize, however, that we need to deepen the vocabulary in specific areas in order to provide the granularity necessary to differentiate items within a chemical discipline. Deeper vocabularies have been constructed in the areas of organic chemistry and physical chemistry and work is being done in general chemistry, analytical chemistry, and chemistry laboratories. We anticipate that each community of the ChemEd DL will work to provide a vocabulary that adequately describes their areas of chemistry.
Tools that help map one vocabulary onto another are also being developed. By mapping vocabularies in use onto a consolidated, central, controlled vocabulary, we hope to provide services that match library items with textbook content, for instance.
NSDL Metadata Working Group
The NSDL Metadata Working Group is in charge of metadata for the entire NSDL. Information about their work can be found at http://nsdl.org/collection/metadata-guide.php.
