Want Background for Linked Open Data? Try this Coursera Metadata Class

Just a quick note to encourage anyone who was interested in LAWDI, the Linked Ancient World Data Institute (see my post on it here) – but felt that you lacked the conceptual background to really grapple with stuff like metadata and RDFa – to check out this MOOC.  Jeffrey Pomerantz (@jpom) of the School of Information and Library Science at UNC Chapel Hill (who, full disclosure, is a former work- friend) is teaching Metadata: Organizing and Discovering Information at Coursera.  The class started Sept. 2 and runs through Oct. 28, but I am pretty sure you can still pick up and start right now if you want to.  If you don’t have the time or inclination to do the homework and follow the discussion forums, I still recommend the lectures, which can be watched in probably a couple of hours a week. As it’s a MOOC, this is free, except you have to sign up with Coursera, but so far they have not been doing much marketing to me.

Although I am a librarian with a recent (2009) library science degree, I never had a class explicitly in metadata and sometimes feel like I picked up everything I know about metadata by accident, and piecemeal.  This class is really helping me consolidate my knowledge and feel on much firmer ground with Dublin Core and so forth.