Server-side automatic metadata generation using qualified Dublin Core and RDF

The paper proposes a technique for automatically generating Qualified Dublin Core metadata (Weibel, 2000) on a Web server using a Java Servlet. The metadata is structured using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and expressed in eXtensible Markup Language (XML). The descriptions cover ten of the fifteen standard Dublin Core metadata elements and semantic precision is increased by element refinement and encoding scheme qualifiers. The servlet refinement and encoding scheme qualifiers. The servlet produces rich but interoperable metadata encompassing data from all three of the main element groups; content, instantiation and intellectual property. The generated descriptions could most obviously be used by tools for resource discovery but also by local data management applications. Sites wishing to submit content to a portal or specialised digital library could be encouraged to run such an application in order to automate resource description.