DCMI Education Committee 2025 Report

The DCMI Education Committee was initiated in 2020 and officially established in 2021 with the creation of multiple Task Groups (TGs). Its primary role is to coordinate activities and publications that educate and inform users about current developments and technologies for metadata. Currently, the committee includes 28 members representing 19 countries in Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Oceania. The committee continues to operate five Task Groups and expanded its reach by establishing a new Asia/Pacific Special Group (TG6) in 2025.

One of the committee’s most recent initiatives is an international survey on metadata and AI, conducted with contributions from all members, launched in October 2024 and completed in March 2025. The DCMI Education Committee’s Metadata and AI Survey was made available in 15 languages and received over 750 fully completed responses from metadata professionals in 50 countries. Building on this project, a book entitled AI and the Transformation of Metadata Research and Practices – Global and Regional Perspectives, with contributions primarily from the committee members, will be published by Cambridge University Press & Assessment in the coming year.

The Task Groups of the DCMI Education Committee have produced a range of significant and meaningful outcomes, including webinars, collaborative events held in different countries, an international survey, a continuously updated list of metadata standards, and a website dedicated to education.

TG1 has been organizing webinars and tutorials in the recent five years. In 2025, two DCMI and ASIS&T joint webinars were held and both were well attended. Another incoming one will be given based on the Committee's Metadata and AI Survey:

• Chinese Students in Archives: Radical Empathy & Metadata
• Centering LGBTQ+ Voices in Catalog Research
• AI and the Transformation of Metadata Research and Practices: Global and Regional Perspectives

TG1 is also directly involved in the Dublin Core Academy, which has Inkyung Choi as the co-chair. The DC Academy was launched in October 2024, with two primary types of training programs: standards-oriented and technology-oriented.

In collaborating with researchers and colleagues from Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, focusing on academic librarians’ development, a paper led by Gema Bueno de la Fuente, will present the results of a survey at the ISKO España-Portugal Conference in November 2025:

• “Competencies for organising knowledge and information in institutional repositories: the perspective of professionals in Brazil, Spain, and Portugal”

TG1 members:

• Karen Wickett (University of Illinois, USA) - Chair
• Gema Bueno de la Fuente (University of Zaragoza, Spain) - Co-Chair
• Inkyung Choi (OCLC, USA / Sungkyunkwan University, Korea) - Tutorials sub-group Chair, DCMI Academy co-chair
• Catherine Barnes (University of South Australia, Australia)

Since its establishment in 2024, TG2 has used topic modeling to study and identify metadata-related topics, tools, and tasks in the literature. Over the past year, TG2 has pursued the following initiatives:

1) Global Survey of the Impact of AI on Metadata Creation and Management

• First Stage Survey: Launched in October 2024 and collected 752 full responses by March 2025. The survey was translated and available in 15 languages to reach broader communities. It was disseminated to the committee members' professional networks widely.
• Data Analysis: The statistical analysis of the survey data is complete, with the identified categories, sentiment, topics, and themes. Regional analysis is underway by Małgorzata Kisilowska-Szurmińska's team (Poland, Germany, USA), Bhakti Gala's team (India) and Junzhi Jia's team (China).
• Second Stage Survey: A second phase of the survey is proposed to focus initially on Brazil, with potential expansion to other Portuguese-speaking countries. Data collection is planned between September and November 2025.
• Complementary Research: Dr. George Yi at Charles Sturt University in Australia secured an internal research grant in August 2025 for a project on "Academic librarians' perceptions of new skills and competencies in the age of artificial intelligence," complementing the task group's work.
• Publications: There are multiple peer-reviewed papers and conference presentations based on the global survey. [Refer to section 4 below: "Presentations & Publications based on the AI Survey activity."]

2) Competency Framework Development

• The task group aims to define the core AI-related competencies for metadata professionals.
• The "ACRL AI Competencies for Library Workers" draft document (March 2025) is a relevant resource for this discussion. An existing document on "Competency Development Needs for Information Professionals Regarding AI and Metadata," extracted from the initial survey analysis, will serve as a starting point.

3) Curriculum & Training Design

• The task group plans to review current LIS syllabi to identify gaps in AI, data science, and ethics content.
• This will inform the design of training and capacity-building programs/webinars, drawing inspiration from the DCMI Education Committee's experience with webinars.

TG2 members:

• Francisco Carlos Paletta (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) - Chair
• Ying-Hsang Liu (Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany) - Co-Chair
• Magnus Pfeffer (Stuttgart Media University, Germany)
• Humphrey Kombe Keah (RightPoint Information Services Limited, Kenya)
• Yunhyong Kim (University of Glasgow, UK)
• Jun-Zhi Jia (Renming University, China)
• Malgorzata Kisilowska-Szurminska (University of Warsaw, Poland)
• Sangeun Han (University of Toronto, Canada)
• Sophy Chen (Academia Sinica Taiwan)

TG3 focuses on tracking new standards and revisions released in the 2020s. To support this work, a dedicated webpage showcasing notable standards was created and is available at https://nkos.dublincore.org/Metadata-standards.html, with three major sections:

1. "New & Notable Developments." This section highlights significant new actions related to (meta)data, from official international standards organizations, best practices guidelines, and initiatives by societies across regions in the world. The coverage is broad and in-depth, spanning areas such as data documentation (particularly for those produced by surveys and other observational methods in the social, behavioral, economic, and health sciences), web accessibility, data privacy, climate and forecast metadata convention, interchange of cultural heritage information, AI system impact assessment, etc.
2. "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Standards and Guidelines." This section focuses specifically on AI related developments. It includes standards released or under development by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42 Artificial intelligence, (over 80 released or under-development), the EU's Artificial intelligence Act, and guidelines by UNESCO, various governments, W3C, and others.
3. "Current Standards." This section provides metadata resources organized into the following groups: General Purposes; Cultural Objects and Visual Resources; Research Data; Archives, Preservation, Provenance; and Publishing and Press Communications, plus the Standardized Schemes, Guidelines, and other Special Resources.

TG3 members:

• Marcia Zeng (Kent State University, United States) - Chair
• Julaine Clunis (Old Dominion University, USA) - Co-Chair
• Wei Fan (Sichuan University, China)
• Jennifer Campbell-Meier (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)

TG4 has strengthened its role as a global reference point in advancing metadata practices. Its key outcomes includes planning Dublin Core training programs, disseminating papers from the DCMI 2024 Conference, and developing a webinar on the Fundamentals of Metadata. Collaborative research with the University of Colombo advanced the identification of best practices, while global engagement with National Libraries supported efforts to establish benchmarks for metadata use. TG4 also contributed actively to the DCMI 2025 Conference through the Best Practices Session, further reinforcing its contribution to international standards in metadata.

Two special webinars were held in Sri Lanka in 2025 by the DCMI Edu. members:

• "Metadata and Digital Libraries: Standards and Practices," by Chiranthi Wijesundara
• "Open and Local LLMs for Sustainable AI Workflows in Memory Institutions," by Nishad Thalhath

Committee members also proposed major activities for TG4 in the coming year, with the aim of promoting and disseminating best practices in metadata creation and management, thereby supporting the interoperability and accessibility of digital resources.

TG4 members:

• Francisco Carlos Paletta (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) - Chair
• Chiranthi Wijesundara (University of Colombo, Sri Lanka) - Co-Chair
• Gila Prebor (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
• Jennifer Campbell-Meier (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
• Alison Day (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
• Farrah Diana Saiful Bahry (Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia)
• Shuheng Wu (Queens College, The City University of New York, USA)
• Joana Rodrigues (University of Porto, Portugal)
• Bhakti Gala (Central University of Gujarat, India)

TG5 manages the DCMI Education website https://education.dublincore.org/ launched in 2025, which serves as a valuable resource for metadata education and training. The site features Articles, News & Events, and a Community Forum.

TG5 Chair:

• Nishad Thalhath (University of Tsukuba, Japan; DCMI) – Chair

TG6 is a new TG established in 2025 representing the Asia Pacific Task Force. Its mission is to expand outreach and engagement efforts across the region, with a particular focus on fostering inclusive and regionally relevant metadata education. Plans are underway for a series of virtual and in-person events designed to support capacity building, knowledge exchange, and collaboration among educators, practitioners, and researchers. Through these initiatives, the group seeks to strengthen the global metadata community by amplifying voices from the Asia-Pacific region and aligning with DCMI’s strategic goals for sustainable and equitable education.

TG6 members:

• Jennifer Campbell-Meier (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) - Chair
• Alison Day (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) - Co-Chair
• Wei Fan (Sichuan University, China)
• Farrah Diana Saiful Bahry (Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia)
• Nishad Thalhath (RIKEN, Japan)
• Bhakti Gala (Central University of Gujarat, India)
• Catherine Barnes (University of South Australia, Australia)

The year 2025 marked 30 years since the innovative launch of the Dublin Core metadata element set, first introduced in 1995. To commemorate this milestone, a special DCMI Timeline Task Group was established in 2025, led by DCMI Governing Board Chair Alasdair MacDonald and DCMI Core Cultural Metadata Model Interest Group leader Shigeo Sugimoto. Several members of the Education Committee joined this initiative, contributing to historical studies, data collection, and visualization efforts. The outcomes of this work will be presented in a special report and presentation in DCMI2025.

DCMI Timeline Task Group - Members from Edu. Committee:

• Marcia Zeng (Kent State University, United States)
• Sangeun Han (University of Toronto, Canada)
• Sophy Chen (Academia Sinica Taiwan)
• Bhakti Gala (Central University of Gujarat, India)
• Nishad Thalhath (RIKEN, Japan)
• Yunhyong Kim (University of Glasgow, UK)

The Education Committee members have actively contributed to the 2025 DCMI International Conference by serving in the Conference Organization Committee:

• Program co-chair: Gema Bueno de la Fuente
• Student Forum co-Chair: Ying-Hsang Liu
• Tutorial & Workshop Chair: Inkyung Choi
• Best Practices co-Chairs: Francisco Carlos Paletta, and Chiranthi Wijesundara
• Advisor: Marcia Zeng
• Event Manager: Sangeun Han
• Web Manager: Nishad Thalhath

• A presentation (March 19) at the IFLA 2025 Symposium, under the "Technology Matters" subtheme, discussed the use of AI in metadata creation and management.
• "Navigating the AI-Driven Metadata Landscape: A Human Centered Approach" was presented at the International Conference on Economics and Business Information (INCONECSS 2025) in Berlin on May 15, 2025, incorporating LLM evaluation results.
• Ying-Hsang Liu presented survey findings to the RDA Data Discovery Meeting (June 18), approximately 200 information professionals in Taiwan (June 25), and students at the Summer School in Wuhan University in China (July 3).
• The DCMI 2025 Panel, "AI and the Transformation of Metadata Research and Practices – Global and Regional Perspectives," features a report of this large-scale survey, with contributions from panelists representing Asia, Africa, America, and Europe.
• An incoming DCMI and ASIS&T webinar, "AI and the Transformation of Metadata Research and Practices: Global and Regional Perspectives" will be given by Ying-Hsang Liu on Oct. 30, 2025.

Two peer-reviewed papers are published in the conference proceedings:

• "Librarians Attitudes Towards AI: AI-enhanced Metadata Creation and Management as New Challenges in Workplace Information Literacy" by Małgorzata Kisilowska-Szurmińska, Anna Mierzecka, Ying-Hsang Liu, and Natalia Strąk. In Proceedings of the Ninth European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL).
• "Assessing the Effectiveness of LLMs (Large Language Models) for Extracting Topics and Themes in Survey Responses" by Ying-Hsang Liu, Xin Yang, and Junzhi Jia. In Proceedings of the DCMI 2025 Conference.

A book, AI and the Transformation of Metadata Research and Practices – Global and Regional Perspectives, co-edited by Ying-Hsang Liu, Marcia Lei Zeng, and Alasdair MacDonald, has been accepted by Cambridge University Press & Assessment to publish in 2026. The book focuses on themes including AI applications for digitized resources, automating metadata processes, ethical considerations, and regional perspectives on AI adoption. The book has five sections, with 20 chapters, mainly from DCMI Edu. members.

AI and the Transformation of Metadata Research and Practices - Global and Regional Perspectives

• Section 1: Introduction and Survey Insights
• Section 2: AI Applications for Digitised Resources and Languages
• Section 3: AI for Automating Metadata Processes
• Section 4: Addressing the Ethical Challenges and Societal Impact
• Section 5: Regional Perspectives: AI Adoption and Professional Development in Metadata Practices

The DCMI Education Committee, with its six Task Groups, has coordinated a wide range of activities and publications that inform users about current developments and technologies for metadata. Committee members also contribute actively to the DCMI annual conferences, taking on various leadership roles, in addition to participating in panel organization, session moderation, and paper reviews. The Students Forum, in particular, has been led by the Edu. Committee members. It provides an opportunity for master’s and doctoral students to share their experiences, exchange ideas, and present research on metadata innovation and other related educational topics.

The Committee remains committed to advancing its work through TGs and community-wide contributions. It will also expand its outreach by conducting international surveys, providing useful guidelines and references, and organizing webinars and tutorials for audiences ranging from newcomers to experts, including metadata educators in both academic and professional settings.