OMN (Open Media Network)
& Uniform Metadata Descriptions for Program Submissions

Context
PBCore Integration
Contacts

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As summarized in the Mission Statement for OMN...

Open Media Network (http://www.omn.org) is a non-profit focused on making it easier to find high-quality video programming by innovative educational, community and non-profit organizations. We are the place to find and showcase video people care deeply about -- video that informs, educates and engages the public. Watching quality programming should be as easy as turning on a TV. OMN downloads programs to your computer so programs can be viewed there, on TV via Tivo or on mobile video devices. OMN's Internet TV Viewer service features over 40,000 free movie downloads, free video downloads, and free audio downloads. Producers of quality programming can also make their video downloads or free audio downloads available to anyone using the OMN Internet TV Viewer.

Like iTunes for online music collections, the OMN Internet TV Viewer downloads and manages the media you select and makes it available to whichever device you want to watch it on: your PC, your home TV through TiVo, or your portable video player or iPod.

OMN Internet Viewer: Sample Programs Available for Download

This case example will not examine the multiple media file formats and the extensive distribution options that OMN implements. Rather this case will focus on OMN's metadata management challenges. OMN maintains its own metadata dictionary. Video and audio items are tagged with descriptors in order to make them searchable from the OMN website or the OMN Internet Viewer. End users either select from pre-established topical groups or conduct keyword searches across pre-selected metadata fields.

OMN itself does not produce content. It aggregates content as supplied by producers and organizations and makes it available to a variety of "consumption profiles" or audiences. The looming challenge is the need for uniformity in the metadata that is supplied by content contributors to OMN. The issue is the ease with which the contributors' metadata can be dovetailed with OMN's, integrated into the OMN search engine, thus facilitating successful searches by the public. The main goal is to enhance findability. The task is to build crosswalks between the data that is exchanged with the Open Media Network.

In their efforts to solve the problem of uniform metadata submissions from content producers to the Open Media Network, OMN has included in its list of development projects a task to realign OMN metadata with PBCore. PBCore offers well documented definitions for its metadata elements, as well as usage guidelines, recommended authorities, picklists of vocabulary terms, and structured syntax for the entry of data.

As with other contributors to our Case Examples, PBCore is valued for its ability to crosswalk metadata from one information management system to another by using its XML Schema Definition (XSD). Many have referred to PBCore as a "rosetta stone" that facilitates the translation of one metadata dictionary to another, once the contributing data source transforms and exports its information in a compliant XML format and the receiving data system imports the XML format into its own schema.

OMN can envision that upon receiving a PBCore XML compliant metadata record, they can auto-parse the descriptions into an RSS document, which is one of their default program submission protocols. Data can be extracted from the RSS feed, ingested into the backend database for OMN and then pushed out to the public website.

Extensions to PBCore are envisioned, including educational categories, grade level matching, appropriateness to specific audiences, as well as academic discipline categories and topics that will enhance the findability of media assets in the searchable collections posted to the Open Media Network.

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