A Metadata schema framework for functional extension of metadata schema registry

The DCMI metadata schema registry has been developed as an authoritative source of DCMI metadata terms. The DCMI registry has an important role to enhance semantic interoperability of the metadata terms. From our experiences in the development of the DCMI registry, we have learned that the registry has large potential to serve as a center of various service functions related to metadata schemas such as metadata editors and search tools. This paper presents a framework of metadata schemas and discusses its application to schema registries for extending the registry functions. The metadata schema framework presented has a layered structure in order to explicitly separate semantic and syntactic features of metadata schemas. This paper presents a few functional extensions of the registry and discusses the extension based on the proposed schema framework.