With a Focused Intent: Evolution of DCMI as a Research Community

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) has played a pivotal role in developing and nurturing a metadata domain. DCMI’s conference has become an international venue for metadata researchers and professionals. The purpose of this study was to discover the epistemological consensus and social semantics, if any, of a metadata domain based in DCMI conferences. Specifically, we identified the patterns of emergent and evolving themes over time. To do so we used bibliometric tools including co-word analysis and author co-citation analysis of the DCMI conferences from 2001-2012. The results showed a domain with an underlying teleology (Dublin Core metadata) and with social semantics, represented by semantic coherence in the use of terms. Social semantics also demonstrates shared epistemology as revealed by the co-citation perceptions of the domain. The domain clearly has a focused intent, albeit with a limited focus. User groups are missing from the domain’s definition as it emerges in this analysis. There is much room for the domain to nurture so-far under-represented research topics.