XMEG System Documentation: Functional Overview

The following sections describes the various functional aspects of the XMEG system.

Data Model

Data Model Diagram

The Resource object represents all the metadata that describes a particular Media Asset (text, image, video, audio). A Resource is comprised of four different types of metadata:

Descriptive metadata: contains a number of fields used to describe the resource. A standard descriptive metadata format such as Dublin Core is typically used. The Descriptive metadata would contain a reference (URL) to the Media Asset; a type (text, image, video, audio); and title/subject information.
Annotation metadata: contains any annotations that users may have added to the particular resource. The date and person who added the annotation is recorded. Annotations may be written or spoken, in which case the annotation refers to an audio file containing the spoken annotation.
Rights metadata: contains particular restrictions regarding the access of the particular resource.
Tribal Care metadata: contains information specified by traditional owners about how to respectfully deal with the resource. This typically pertains to resources that are digital surrogates of physical objects.

User Profiles describe the particular users of the system. Each profile contains a login-id, password, name, user type (see Roles section below) and any number of other fields that describe the characteristics of the user. A profile may be assigned to a single person or a user profile may created that describes a groups of people.

Schemas are used to define both the Resource and User Profiles. They allow users to customise (using the SchemaManager) the structure of the Resource metadata and user profiles. By altering the schema users can specify which metadata fields should appear and what their semantics should be.

Roles

There are three type of users in the XMEG: admin, owner and user. Each may perform different roles in the system:

	`user`	`owner`	`admin`
Description	General users of the system.	Owners of resources or collections.	Administrators of the systems.
Open metadata/media files*	Granted	Granted	Granted
Add/edit descriptive metadata	Denied	Granted	Granted
Add/view/listen to written/spoken annotations*	Granted	Granted	Granted
Delete/edit/restrict annotations	Denied	Granted	Granted
Add/edit rights metadata	Denied	Granted	Granted
Add/edit tribal care metadata	Denied	Granted	Granted
Add/edit user profiles	Denied	Denied	Granted
Load/edit schemas	Denied	Denied	Granted
Edit configuration	Denied	Denied	Granted
* Provided the user profiles meets the rights requirements specified by the particular resource/annotation.

^^[Back to Top] | [Back to contents]