Investigation of Learning Object Metadata and application to a search engine for K-12 schools in Japan

Standardizing Learning Object Metadata (LOM) has been investigated by the IEEE, IMS and other organizations. In the project presented, we customized LOM to make it consistent with Japanese K-12 school education under the guidelines of the Advanced Learning Infrastructure Consortium (ALIC), which is currently proceeding with standardization related to e-learning in Japan. Expanding LOM structure and creating Japanese-specific vocabularies were investigated to make effective use of the educational contents used in the new search engine. Characteristic metadata based on the customized LOM was created for a large number of educational resources produced in national projects conducted in accordance with government policy and registered in the search engine. The search engine will be open to the public on the Internet in May 2001. The educational resources will also be available over the Internet. We project that LOM use will lead to more effective use of educational resources in K-12 schools