[edit] Potentials for Metadata

I have this crazy idea of using the Case Wiki to record metadata for all kinds of objects on campus (it already does it for geographic positions). The easiest way for computers to obtain and read this metadata is through XML. I have decided to not allow XML embedding in normal articles. The reason for this is that the average user won't be able to figure out the XML. Instead, I've established the alternative of putting XML in its own namespace. If the author so chooses, the XML can be linked to a Case Wiki topic. It might be possible to link a template back to this metadata so the article might show details about the recorded metadata. This gives me something to think about.

In the meantime, I have to start thinking of what metadata we can and shall record. --Gregory.szorc July 22, 2005 16:47 (EDT)

[edit] Calendar Resources Proposal

The new Oracle Calendar beta will be rolling out pretty soon. We are determined to get resources populated in the calendar. However, we don't yet know how to control the creation, provisioning, and modification of the resources. Sure there is a web interface, but that is just clunky. What would be really cool is if we could bootstrap the calendar with lots of common resources on campus, like classrooms and lecture halls. Once you have a resource in the LDAP, how do you modify it? Every resource needs to have an owner. Who owns the classrooms? Who changes ownership? What if the owner disappears? I propose we use this wiki as part of the solution.

Say we start recording calendar resources as XML blocks in this wiki. The XML blocks can contain info about the owner of those items. Assuming we can lock down wiki permissions on these items, it would be trivial to write a synchronization process between the wiki and the calendar. We can even establish a rooms control group that has permissions to edit a room resource in the wiki.

As a bonus of recording all of this cool data in the wiki, we can do cool things with it. For instance, the XML for a room will obviously reference the building in which that room is located. One could easily query the database for all classrooms in a specific building. You could then cross reference these classrooms with a list of classes being taught and link them all together. The wiki entry for say Schmitt Lecture Hall could automatically list all classes currently being taught there as well as the professors teaching them. Similarly, a query for a professor could list all the courses that professor is teaching. This data would not have to be entered in the wiki. Instead, it would be available in XML from wherever it is that this data comes from. --Gregory.szorc July 22, 2005 16:47 (EDT)