Dear Denny,

thanks for your feedback: indeed you have to pay for the MLR standards (as it is the business model of ISO what I also do not like).

But there are several unique advantages of the ISO standards: First, transparent and open process of their development (according the openly available ISO directives). Second, voting by national delegations from the United Nations' and ISO member states. Third, balanced voting (one country, one vote!). Fourth, ISO standards can be used without any costs, without any licensing and without any patent problems (if not clearly stated differently on the first page).

That means, only one person has to contribute the standard and then you can use it for any project including your Wikimedia projects. Therefore I would not call the fact that the standard is sold by ISO as a big obstacle for its use.

Hope that it helps and clarifies.

Best Christian

With best regards

Christian Stracke

---

Christian M. Stracke Convener ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36/WG5 Chair CEN TC 353 HR, E-Learning, Quality and Competence Development University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen Information Systems for Production and Operations Management Universitaetsstr. 9 (FB WIWI: ICB) D-45141 Essen (Germany)

Tel.: +49-(0)201-183-4410 Fax: +49-(0)201-183-4067 E-mail: Christian.Stracke@icb.uni-due.de WWW: http://www.wip.uni-due.dehttp://www.wip.uni-due.de/

eCOTOOL harmonizes competence models for European policies http://www.ecompetence.euhttp://www.ecompetence.eu/

WACOM for Water Competences in Europe http://www.wacom-project.euhttp://www.wacom-project.eu/

Q.E.D. supports quality and standards in e-learning http://www.qed-info.dehttp://www.qed-info.de/

CEN/TC 353 "ICT for Learning, Education and Training" http://www.cen.eu/isss/TC_353

ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 "IT for Learning, Education and Training" http://www.sc36.orghttp://www.sc36.org/

Von: Denny Vrandečić [mailto:denny.vrandecic@wikimedia.de] Gesendet: Dienstag, 3. April 2012 11:30 An: Discussion list for the Wikidata project. Cc: Stracke, Christian Betreff: Re: [Wikidata-l] Wikidata: New ISO Metadata standard MLR published last year

Dear Christian,

thanks for your pointers!

I clicked on the first part of the three parts you have listed. It tells me to pay 162 Swiss Franks to even read the standard. Wikimedia is devoted to free knowledge, which includes the software and standards we use. Therefore I am afraid that such a standard is not very high on our priorities for things to be considered for our mission.

Cheers, Denny

2012/4/3 Stracke, Christian <Christian.Stracke@icb.uni-due.demailto:Christian.Stracke@icb.uni-due.de> Dear all,

I would like to draw your attention to the latest international metadata standard from ISO (International Standardization Committee established by the United Nations in 1949):

ISO/IEC 19788, called MLR (= Metadata for Learning Resource, named for historical reasons but applicable for any resources).

MLR was developed and approved by the national delegations from all five continents after eight years of development and discussion in ISO committee SC36 (http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/open/jtc1sc36). It is completely compliant with Dublin Core (also adopted as ISO standard). And only ISO (www.iso.orghttp://www.iso.org) can approve and publish official and de-jure standards at the international level. The first three parts are published: http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnum... http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnum... http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnum...

MLR is already adopted in many countries as national standards and used in implementations (mainly in Asia). Currently the voting has been started in the European Standardization Committee CEN TC 353 (http://www.cen.eu/CEN/sectors/sectors/isss/Pages/CEN TC 353.aspxhttp://www.cen.eu/CEN/sectors/sectors/isss/Pages/CEN%20TC%20353.aspx) that MLR is adopted as European Norm (EN) by CEN, too. Then MLR as EN will automatically withdraw all national metadata standards in Europe that are in conflict with MLR for harmonization across Europe. I assume that after approval as European Norm the implementation of MLR will increase immediately in Europe, too.

Therefore I recommend to consider the usage and implementation of MLR as metadata standard for the metadata description of the data.

I hope that it helps for setting up Wikidata. Thank you very much for your consideration and feedback!

Best wishes Christian

With best regards

Christian Stracke

---

Christian M. Stracke Convener ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36/WG5 Chair CEN TC 353 HR, E-Learning, Quality and Competence Development University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen Information Systems for Production and Operations Management Universitaetsstr. 9 (FB WIWI: ICB) D-45141 Essen (Germany)

Tel.: +49-(0)201-183-4410tel:%2B49-%280%29201-183-4410 Fax: +49-(0)201-183-4067tel:%2B49-%280%29201-183-4067 E-mail: Christian.Stracke@icb.uni-due.dehttp://Christian.Stracke@icb.uni-due.de WWW: http://www.wip.uni-due.dehttp://www.wip.uni-due.de/

eCOTOOL harmonizes competence models for European policies http://www.ecompetence.euhttp://www.ecompetence.eu/

WACOM for Water Competences in Europe http://www.wacom-project.euhttp://www.wacom-project.eu/

Q.E.D. supports quality and standards in e-learning http://www.qed-info.dehttp://www.qed-info.de/

CEN/TC 353 "ICT for Learning, Education and Training" http://www.cen.eu/isss/TC_353

ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 "IT for Learning, Education and Training" http://www.sc36.orghttp://www.sc36.org/

_______________________________________________ Wikidata-l mailing list Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.orgmailto:Wikidata-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l

-- Project director Wikidata Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Eisenacher Straße 2 | 10777 Berlin Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de

Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.

You are mixing up reading and using of standards: Unfortunately ISO standards are currently not freely available and you have to pay for a copy. ISO is changing slowly their business and we have already asked for making these particular standards available for free. (For some standards with broad interest it is possible to make them available for free, decision is pending)

The usage of ISO standards is completely free: And also for your development team and for all people "who want to *use* our data". I'm convinced that all people does not want to read metadata standards but only the specialists: All people want that metadata are simply working well and providing good search and retrieval results. Therefore I do not understand your argument (but I agree that I would also prefer if this ISO standard MLR would be available for free). Maybe you can say that the standard is not free but the usage of the standard is free (and that is more important). Therefore I do not know why MLR should not be usable for a Wikipedia project.

Best wishes Christian

With best regards   Christian Stracke   ---   Christian M. Stracke Convener ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36/WG5 Chair CEN TC 353 HR, E-Learning, Quality and Competence Development University of Duisburg-Essen, Campus Essen Information Systems for Production and Operations Management Universitaetsstr. 9 (FB WIWI: ICB) D-45141 Essen (Germany)   Tel.: +49-(0)201-183-4410 Fax: +49-(0)201-183-4067 E-mail: Christian.Stracke@icb.uni-due.de WWW: http://www.wip.uni-due.de

eCOTOOL harmonizes competence models for European policies http://www.ecompetence.eu

WACOM for Water Competences in Europe http://www.wacom-project.eu

Q.E.D. supports quality and standards in e-learning http://www.qed-info.de

CEN/TC 353 "ICT for Learning, Education and Training" http://www.cen.eu/isss/TC_353

ISO/IEC JTC1 SC36 "IT for Learning, Education and Training" http://www.sc36.org

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: Daniel Kinzler [mailto:daniel.kinzler@wikimedia.de] Gesendet: Mittwoch, 4. April 2012 11:54 An: Discussion list for the Wikidata project. Cc: Stracke, Christian; Denny Vrandečić Betreff: Re: [Wikidata-l] Wikidata: New ISO Metadata standard MLR published last year

On 04.04.2012 09:31, Stracke, Christian wrote:

Fourth, ISO standards can be used without any costs, without any licensing and without any patent problems (if not clearly stated differently on the first page).

Why then does the website ask for payment? Can I read the standard online somewhere, for free?

That means, only one person has to contribute the standard and then you can use it for any project including your Wikimedia projects.

Wikimedia is dedicated to using free formats and standards only. Not only the development team, also people who want to *use* our data need to be able to read the relevant standards. For free. If thy have to pay to be able to read the standard, it's not a free standard, and thus not usable for a Wikimedia project.

Daniel Kinzler