Last updated: October 22, 2004

1. Why do we need another metadata initiative or specification?
    
2. Who works for and supports CanCore?
    
3. What is the difference between CanCore and IMS, and what might be the advantages of using one or the other?
    
4. Is CanCore a standard?
    
5. What is an application profile?
    
6. What would it mean to be CanCore compliant?
    
7. What is the difference between CanCore and SCORM?
    
8. Would CanCore limit a project or metadata record to using its subset of IMS elements?

(Note: Unless otherwise noted, "LOM" refers to the "Learning Object Metadata standard," and "CanCore" refers to the "CanCore Learning Object Application Profile.")

1. Why do we need another metadata initiative or specification?
   The IMS, a global consortium of educational, industry and goverment stakeholders in e-learning states that the standard is too cumbersome and complicated to be readily implemented in its entirety by vendors and other users:

   Many vendors [have] expressed little or no interest in developing products that [are] required to support a set of meta-data with over 80 elements. ...Most have existing products that they hope could support a minimum baseline of elements that the learning resource community would agree to be essential." (http://www.imsproject.org/metadata/mdbestv1p1.html)

   CanCore addresses some of these issues by recommending simplifications and interpretations of the LOM standard.  CanCore provides best practice recommendations for the implementation of the LOM standard to maximize the opportunity for interoperability between projects.  
   

2. Who works for and supports CanCore?
   The CanCore Initiative is currently funded by the Multimedia Learning Group of Industry Canada, and supported by TeleUniversite and Athabasca Univeristy. The primary participants in the CanCore initiative are Norm Friesen (normf@athabascau.ca), Pierre Bernard (pbernard@licef.teluq.uquebec.ca), Karin Lundgren (klundgre@licef.teluq.uquebec.ca), and Anthony Roberts (aroberts@nbnet.nb.ca).  All of CanCore's work is publicly available at no charge.
    
3. What is the difference between CanCore and IMS, and what might be the advantages of using one or the other?
   CanCore is an instantiation of the LOM standard.  As such, it occupies the middle ground between this standard and the work needed to create an interoperable body of metadata records. CanCore is not intended to compete with or be used in place of the LOM.  As an indication of these facts, the IMS consortium has included two CanCore records on its Website as exemplary instances of the use of its own metadata specification (http://www.imsproject.org/metadata/mdv1p2p2/samples/cancore/cancore_ex1.xml). 
   
   Any implementation of the LOM will require the interpretation of many of its aspects (definitions of element semantics being among the most evident).  CanCore is an example of an interpretation and application of the LOM that can be used for the purposes of implementing this e-learning standard in a project.  Another example of such an interpretation are the CIMI guidelines written for the Dublin Core metadata specification (http://www.cimi.org/public_docs/meta_bestprac_v1_1_210400.pdf).
   
   As a part of its interpretation of the LOM, CanCore provides best practice recommendations that focus on element semantics, or meanings and definitions. The most obvious best practice recommendation that CanCore provides is its identification of a specific subset of LOM elements as being useful for data interchange.  CanCore also makes other recommendations for aspects such as element descriptions and vocabulary terms and definitions.
    
4. Is CanCore a standard?
   No, CanCore is a set of best practice recommendations.  CanCore can also be considered an application profile that focuses not on technical matters but on those of semantics and interpretation.  The LOM is a standard (IEEE 1484.12.1 LOM).  The IEEE LOM standard forms the basis for all IMS and CanCore metadata work.

   CanCore is still in the process of capturing a rough consensus, and is communication with projects in Canada and elsewhere in the hopes of mediating convergent understandings of the Learning Object Metadata standard.  
   

5. What is an application profile?
   In choosing a subset of elements from the Learning Object Metadata standard, and in explicating the meaning of all of the LOM elements, CanCore is developing a 'Metadata Application Profile.' "Application profile" has been defined as "an assemblage of metadata elements selected from one or more metadata schemas and combined in a compound schema" (Duval, et. al. 2002). In the case of CanCore, these elements have been chosen from only one metadata schema.

   However, CanCore has done much more than select elements. CanCore provides a great deal of fine-grained information about each element in the LOM -- information that takes the form of recommendations, examples, and references to other interpretations. In this sense, CanCore represents an application profile that is perhaps more accurately captured by the commonly accepted definition provided by Clifford Lynch: "customizations of [a] standard to meet the needs particular communities of implementers with common applications requirements" (Lynch 1997). However, CanCore and its guidelines emphasize refinement and explication rather than customization or modification, and have been intentionally developed to meet the needs of a broad range of communities. 

6. What would it mean to be CanCore compliant?
   CanCore, like the LOM, has no simple set of criteria that can be used to determine compliance. (Currently, the many LOM implementers seem to understand metadata compliance only in terms of the ability of an XML-encoded record to be successfully parsed or validated against an approved schema document.   Such an understanding of compliance does not address the standardization of descriptive content of the metadata record.)  The goal of CanCore is to optimize interoperability between projects using educational metadata, and to facilitate the effective creation of accurate metadata.  Consequently for CanCore, the term "compliant" might be better replaced with the word "interoperable", or with the phrase "following best practice."
    
7. What is the difference between CanCore and SCORM?
   The relationship between CanCore and the Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) is not one that can be captured through a simple one-to-one comparison.  SCORM references a number of specifications and guidelines to create a multi-dimensional reference model.  Significantly, this reference model includes includes a "content aggregation model", and has been developed in the context of military and training applications.  The CanCore metadata profile addresses only one of the many specifications referenced by SCORM --namely, the IMS metadata specification.  CanCore, moreover, has been developed in the context of public and continuing education needs and requirements.
   
   Currently, CanCore metadata is being used to describe and classify content that would be identified in the SCORM content aggregation model as "Raw Media."   In compliance with SCORM, the CanCore element set includes all 11 elements that SCORM identifies as mandatory for Raw Media materials.
    
8. Would using CanCore mean that a project or metadata record would be limited to CanCore's subset of LOM elements?
   No; the subset of elements identified by CanCore, like anything else it specifies, is a recommendation.  It is assumed that projects will augment these elements with others --developed independently, or taken from the LOM or elsewhere.  Also, CanCore --like the LOM standard-- never requires records to contain all of the LOM elements it identifies.
   
   The subset of elements recommended by CanCore should be seen as an interoperable set of elements. No project using CanCore need use all of its elements but it should have the expectation that other CanCore projects will be able to read and understand those elements used that are included in the CanCore Profile.