The document discusses using microformats and RDFa to represent course metadata for sharing between personal learning environments (PLEs). It analyzes the capabilities of microformats and RDFa for representing things like learning objectives, schedules, participants, and resources. Microformats provide simple adaptation but have limited vocabularies for education, while RDFa is more semantically rich and flexible but has an unclear future without XHTML2 support. The best option depends on needs and limitations.

1. Vladimir Tomberg, Mart Laanpere Tallinn University, Narva mnt. 25, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia vtomberg@tlu.ee, mart.laanpere@tlu.ee

12. Microformats RDFa Can be applied to HTML, XHTML In current state for XHTML 2 and limited for XHTML 1 Have useful implementations for end user today Yes, different add-ons for browsers allow that Not very useful for end user directly today Can be used in mash-ups Yes Yes Implementation in indexing services Google and Yahoo now indexing such microformats as hCard and hReview Google , US Government Website and Slideshare use RDFa Standardized No W3C Recommendation Drawbacks One limited dictionary for all purposes. Because of absence of standards support from developers is more enthusiastic than industrial Because of finishing of XHTML2 development the perspectives of RDFa are very unclear at the current moment

13. Microformats RDFa Vocabularies Only one Unlimited amount is possible Extendable vocabularies Yes, but only through community Yes, freely Interoperability level High Interoperability is possible only if known vocabularies are used Possibilities to add educational semantic values to data Average High

14. Microformats RDFa Course’s membership via hCard Learner and Teacher information via hCard Members relations via XFN Course events via hCalendar Can use any semantic vocabulary that suitable for course description