Describing Theses and Dissertations Using Schema.org

by: Jeffrey K. Mixter, Patrick O'Brien, and Kenning Arlitsch

This report discusses the development of an extension vocabulary for describing theses and dissertations, using Schema.org as a foundation. Instance data from the Montana State University ScholarWorks institutional repository was used to help drive and test the creation of the extension vocabulary. Once the vocabulary was developed, we used it to convert the entire ScholarWorks data sample into RDF. We then serialized a set of three RDF descriptions as RDFa and posted them online to gather statistics from Google Webmaster Tools. The study successfully demonstrated how a data model consisting of primarily Schema.org terms and supplemented with a list of granular/domain specific terms can be used to describe theses and dissertations in detail.

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