The goal of the Application is to provide a metadata utility and search facilities for its users. The metadata schema conforms with existsing metadata standards such as IMS Content Packing (IMSCP) and Dublin Core (DC). This enables the Application to be included in a web of semantic providers.
The Application has three main roles assigned to users; Guest, User and Administrators. In addition, Maintenance is responsible for maintaining and monitoring the performance of the Application
Estimated size of user group: < 500 a day
Anonymous users are assigned the Guest role. A Guest can only access public available Components. The Guest can query the Application for Material Components, browse Components organization in Portfolio Components, view Material Components metadata and read and add annotations to Components.
The Guest is not required to know anything about the Application, therefore the Application can be used by a wide range of Guests.
Estimated size of user group: 30 - 400
An authenticated user can be assigned the User role. A User provides Material Component and the associated metadata to the Application. Users are also able to perform queries, manage Components, browse Components organization in Portfolio Components, view metadata and read add annotations to Components that are made available to them.
A User does not kneed to have a complete knowledge of how the Application functions, but it is importent that Users know how to manage the Component organization and how to provide associated metadata.
Estimated size of user group: 1 - 10
An authenticated user can be assigned the Administrator role. The Administrator maintains the Portfolio Component base. The primary task is to create and remove Portfolio Components and to handle the backup facility.
An Administrator understands the Application enough to support Users in daily rutines.
Estimated size of group: 1 - 2
The main task for Maintenance is to keep the computer on which the Application is installed running and to maintain and monitor the performance of the Application. This includes updating the metadata schemas, maintaining configuration files and the user configuration.
Maintenance understands well how the Application functions, especially the metadata functionallity.
A Component is an abstract data type, an entity of metadata, that nust be extended to have a meaning.
A Component that represents an annotation made about another Component in the Application.
A Component that represents intellectual data and metadata, eg the material content and the material description, in the Application.
A Material Component where the intelectual data represents an organization of other Material Component in the Application.
A Component that represents a User, the Owner, and the root organization of all Material Components associated to the User in the Application.
A Material Component that represents a Component with external content, eg web pages, in the Application.
The user interface will be web-based for all roles, except for Maintenance. However, since the properties of the Application do not exclude the possibility of integrating the Application with a large scale system, the external interface to the Application will be designed in a way that also makes it possible for software components to access the services of the Application.