Comparing Different Metadata Application Profiles for Agricultural Learning Repositories

Agricultural learning repositories can provide new opportunities for sharing, accessing, using and reusing learning resources online. Metadata plays a crucial role in such systems: apart from simply indexing resources, metadata makes it easier to discover a learning resource in a repository, as well as to decide about ways to use it for teaching or learning purposes. In the context of agricultural education and training, a variety of appropriate metadata standards may be selected, adapted and implemented for a learning repository. In this paper we introduce the concept of metadata for agricultural learning resources, and compare two particular cases: one application profile based on the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) and the other based on the IEEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM). The paper attempts to identify similarities and differences between the two case studies and to outline issues that have to be resolved in order to harmonize such efforts.