Group 3

Kara Craig
Ariel A Medoff
Maryana Yevstratenko
Jerry R Napier
Coetus Tres University
Coetus Tres University Digital Paintings Collection

Group 3 Report

2) In the first section of the body of the report, describe your institution and digital collection,
the user population for the collection, and the metadata schemes you will use to catalog the
collection. Give some background on the collection and why it is important.

Our insitution is Coetus Tres University and it houses the Coetus Tres University Digital
Paintings Collection which is a collection of art portraits. The repository was originally created
for art and art history majors to view the growth and dimension of art across the globe. Many of
these painting were created by masters whose works inspired artists and influenced the creation
and dispersal of different art styles. Schools of art both flourished and languished over time and
the paintings depicted in these photographs illustrate their influence on artists. Additionally,
artists from the same school or master moved across countries, spreading what they learned and
affecting the types of art produced.

A proper collection was made so that students could view these works remotely as well as give
the public, especially researchers, a focused resource for study and inspection of portraits. The
user population is mainly students with a focus in art, but is made available for researchers. As
such, the public view of the metadata behind each photograph is robust enough for students and
researchers to gain more specific knowledge of the original paintings.

The metadata schemes used to catalog the collection were Simple Dublin Core, Qualified Dublin
Core, and VRA Core 4.0.

3) In the next section, document your group's decisions regarding the theme, organizing the
work, and developing the metadata application profile. As a group, you should answer the
following questions in this section:
How did your group divide the work?

We used a collective organic method of dividing the work. Anyone was free to contribute at
anytime. After the contribution we all checked each other's work and made any changes
necessary. The metadata application profile’s local, Simple Dublin Core, Qualified Dublin Core,
and VRA Core elements were decided upon as a group and we each went through each section
editing and adding where necessary. Once we finished our first draft of the metadata application

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profile, we each individually made notes where we thought something needed to be changed or
checked off on the sections we believed to be finished.

For our final drafts of the Group Report, metadata application profile, and our individual
metadata schemes, we communicated over Google Hangouts which allowed for a more
collaborative process. We went through each element of the metadata application profile and
metadata schemes to make sure we were in agreement and answered each other’s questions when
they came up. This also served to make sure our metadata schemes had uniformity as they should
in an actual digital collection. When it came to the Group Report, we worked in a GoogleDoc
and answered each question together.

Did you use any outside sources to create your metadata application profile? If so, please cite.
What were some of the challenges your group faced while creating the application profile and
metadata for the collection?

The sources we consulted during the creation of our metadata application profile included S.J.
Miller’s Metadata for Digital Collections: A How-To-Do-It Manual as well as the main online
resources for each of the metadata schemes. Additionally, we looked over previous assignments
and lectures from the class for examples on how our schemes should look as a finished product.
Even so, we still ran into a few problems and challenges. At the very beginning, we decided what
information we wanted and could provide via local elements. This went under multiple revisions
as we finished our metadata application profile and began creating our metadata schemes. The
relation element for all three metadata schemes had us a bit confused, but discussing it together
and providing for each other different ways the elements could look helped us decide collectively
how it should be formatted and what information should be inputed. We ran into a short issue in
Simple Dublin Core with the identifier and type elements but soon formed an agreement on what
information to include for both. The attributes for VRA Core were difficult to map, possibly
because we were starting with Simple Dublin Core which has fewer elements. When creating our
metadata profile application, we all agreed what corresponding VRA Core elements would
match up but when it came time to actually create the metadata scheme, we ran into some
confusion. Going element by element together helped clear it up, but it took some time.

How well did each metadata scheme map to your local elements? Was there any loss of
information?

Each of our metadata schemes mapped well to our local elements. Although there were times we
realized we had forgotten to add an element to our metadata application profile, we found a local
element that fit well with the respective element and so did not run into any issues there. As we
used actual artwork for our images, VRA Core mapped pretty well to the local elements that we
came up with. Dublin Core was a little more ambiguous but, though not as exact as VRA Core,
we were able to identify the most appropriate DC elements, even if some needed to be repeated.

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Luckily, all of the elements matched up well enough that we did not suffer any loss of
information.

Did you need to change your application profile once you began creating records for the
photographs? If so, give a few examples of what you changed and why.
How did your group address issues of metadata quality? (if you are struggling with how to
answer this one, look at Miller Chapter 9, page 245)

After feedback was provided to us, we did go through and refine/specify some of the mapped
elements as well as the “rules” for each element used. Afterwards, we each created our metadata
schemes separately and, once finished, went element by element for each one to make sure our
work was correct. As we went through them, we discovered elements we had previously
forgotten to add to our metadata application profile. We took note of what we were missing or
what had to be corrected and at the end of our metadata scheme edits, we went back and fixed
our metadata application profile until every element we used was included. For example, each of
us included the source element for all of our metadata schemes but somehow forgot to add it to
our metadata application profile. Originally we also had a section in our metadata application
profile for the person depicted in our paintings if they were known, but after receiving feedback
we decided that it was superfluous and that the subject element by itself was comprehensive
enough to include it automatically. Once we had comprehensive and detailed guidelines for each
element, we made sure to include examples for those elements that needed further clarification.

As far as metadata quality, we made sure to add very detailed contextual information in our
metadata application profile. We used linkable attributes in our records and inserted an index
field into our metadata application profile for controlled searching. We came up with an initial
information report that contained all of our base ideas, concepts, scheme choices, and general
direction. Once we all collectively went over our metadata schemes, we made sure to stick to the
controlled vocabulary we had decided on when we first created our metadata application profile.

Feel free to add any further discussion of the project that you feel is important.

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4) In the last section of the report, insert your photographs along with a brief (1-2 sentence)
description so I can easily match the photograph to the accompanying records.
The length of this document will vary by group. Try to keep the main body of the report (sections
2 and 3 above) to about 3-4 pages (give or take) in length.

The image Jerry R Napier worked on is an oil painting, Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889
from the Art Institute of Chicago. The photograph was taken by Ariel Asher Medoff, September
2011.

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The image Ariel Asher Medoff worked on is a tempera and oil painting on wood panel created
by Roberti de’Ercole in the mid to late fifteenth century. The original is currently housed in The
Walters Art Museum. The photograph was taken by Ariel Asher Medoff in August 2018.

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Kara Craig used an image of Picasso’s Repose, taken at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York.

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The image Maryana Yevstratenko worked on is a graphite of Nusch Eluard, made on cream
wove paper, by Pablo Picasso, 1941. The photograph was taken by Maryana Yevstratenko at The
Chicago Art Institute.