Do Healthcare Metadata Models Designed for Web Publishing Meet the Accreditation Standards? A Case Study in the Healthcare and Medical Education

Abstract

This article reports comparison results from studying the alignment of selected metadata models, used to manage E‑Learning Materials (ELM) in the medicine and healthcare education, against the accreditation standards of the European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (EACCME). The study aims to (1) illustrate the variety of application profiles developed as metadata models in that field, (2) identify the alignment of the metadata models with the criteria set by the EACCME. This study com¬pared several application profiles, developed based on established metadata standards, using an evaluation matrix created using the accreditation criteria set by the EACCME. Further technical criteria were added to compare between the metadata models and their alignment with the new techniques used for publishing data online. Such techniques aid in the searchabililty and discovery of online content via the internet. Therefore, the use of XML and RDF technologies combined with the use of ontologies and controlled vocabulary was emphasized in the implementation of many metadata models. One limitation faced during conducting this research was the poor documentation of the methodology for designing the metadata models. Despite this, it is apparent that the EACCME criteria can work as best practices guidelines for describing the content of digital libraries with medical and healthcare content in order to be accredited later on. The study showed that the medicine and healthcare educational content requires specialized metadata models that consider having specific properties such as clinical history and expiry time of its material shown in some of the application profiles. Further research should be conducted to evaluate the completeness and conformity of applying the application profiles in digital libraries and online repositories to the standards’ guidelines.