Designing a Metadata Application Profile for Describing and Organizing the Content Objects of Databases of the Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences

The research was carried out with the aim of designing and constructing a metadata application profile for describing and organizing content objects of the databases of the Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences (CRCIS) with analytical-systematic approach.

The research population included the content objects of four databases including Hawzah Net, Noormags, Noorlib and Andishvaran. In addition to the content objects of these databases, elements, sub-elements and attributes of the most utilized metadata standards including Metadata Objects Description Schema (MODS), Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) and MARC Metadata Format have been studied as the another part of the research. The data was gathered by interviews and structured observations made by the means of  a questionnaire and a checklist.

To design application profile, native features of the content objects and the goals and desired functions of the four databases of the research population were compared with the features of the studied metadata standards and the best elements, sub-elements and attributes that were able to meet the needs of describing and organizing of the four databases were chosen. In some cases, if a new element, sub-elements or attribute, was needed or it was needed to redefine the existing elements, sub-elements or attributes natively, the new elements, sub-elements or attributes were designed and if existed, a native definition was presented to increase its functionality and usability for the databases.

The metadata application profile of the Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences was designed and constructed based on the native requirements and features of the databases of that center and also identifying structures, elements, functions and semantic features resulted in totally 23 elements -16 elements from Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS), 5 elements from Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) and 2 native elements- and by providing a description for each element.