MEG directory

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Introduction

The Metadata for Education Group (MEG) serves as an open forum for debating the description and provision of educational resources at all educational levels across the United Kingdom.

The MEG directory is a database of contact information for people working with, or interested in, metadata standards and specifications used for the description of educational resources.

We haven't pre-populated this directory with any information, so people will have to add their own details. To add your details, you will need an email account. The more people who add their information, the more useful the directory will become, so please encourage your colleagues and contacts to add their details as well.

MEG's activity is focused principally on the description of educational resources for UK learners. However, many of the descriptive standards are international in their coverage, and use of the directory is open to contacts from other countries too.

What information is held?

Every entry in the MEG directory contains a name and an email address.
Entries can also (optionally) contain a phone number, fax number, postal address, the name of the company or organisation that you work for, the general intended audience level of the educational resources with which you are primarily concerned, and the names of the general descriptive standards or specific schemas and application profiles which you work with.

How can it be accessed?

First, you can search the directory using the Web-forms at this site. Type someone's name into the simple search interface or construct a more complex search using the advanced interface.

Results will be displayed as a Web page. Click on a person's email address to send them mail.

vCard

Next to each search result is a link marked '[vCard]'. Select this link to download a virtual business card (vCard). If your Web-browser or email client supports vCard (and many do these days) you will probably be prompted to add the vCard to your personal address book.

LDAP

The MEG directory supports LDAP. What does that mean? It means that if your email client also supports LDAP (and again, many do these days) then you can search this directory directly from your email client while you are sending mail!

Detailed instructions for how to do this for the more common email clients (e.g. Microsoft Outlook Express) will be supplied in due course. In the meantime, if you want to try it, configure your email client (or Web browser) as follows:

Directory host: ldap.ukoln.ac.uk
Port: 389
Search-base: cn=glamPeople,dc=ukoln,dc=org

How secure is it?

Before adding or updating a MEG directory entry we email a copy to the email address in the entry. The email contains a secret ID, known only to us and to the recipient of the email. By replying to the message, we assume that the 'owner' of that email address has given permission for the entry to be stored in the directory.

Privacy

See our separate privacy policy.

Acknowledgements

The MEG directory has been implemented as part of UKOLN's activity in support of the Metadata for Education Group.

UKOLN is funded by Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives & Libraries (the organisation succeeding the Library and Information Commission), the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) of the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils, as well as by project funding from the JISC and the European Union. UKOLN also receives support from the University of Bath where it is based.

Comments and suggestions: interop-focus@ukoln.ac.uk