Skip to content

Metadata Section Explorer

Run the Metadata Section Explorer MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

Every MicroSim's metadata.json groups its fields into sections under one microsim object. This explorer draws the H-Bridge Circuit file from the STEM Robots textbook, the specimen used in Chapters 2 and 15, as a network. The microsim root sits in the center, the five required sections surround it in five colors, and the three optional sections (simulation, analytics, usage) are small gray nodes on dashed edges.

Click a section to fan out its fields. A field with a solid border is required by the schema; a dashed border means optional. The panel beside the network shows the section's purpose, the fields the schema requires and every H-Bridge value in that section. Click a field to see its type, whether it is required and its exact value. Hover any node for the schema's own description.

Nothing here is invented. The field values are read from data.json, an unmodified copy of the STEM Robots docs/sims/h-bridge/metadata.json, and the required lists, types and descriptions are read from microsim-schema.json, an unmodified copy of this repository's src/microsim-schema/microsim-schema.json. Where the schema gives a field no description, the tooltip says so and lists the sub-fields it defines. The H-Bridge file has no optional sections, so their fields come from the schema alone and carry no values.

Learning objective: The learner will classify each field of the H-Bridge metadata.json under the correct section (dublinCore, search, educational, technical, userInterface) and tell required fields from optional ones.

Bloom's taxonomy level: Understand (verb: classify)

How to Use

  1. Click a colored section node to expand its fields; click it again (or Collapse all) to fold them away. One section is open at a time.
  2. Click a field node to read its type, whether the schema requires it and its H-Bridge value.
  3. Hover any node for the schema description.
  4. Check Required fields only to hide the optional fields and see the minimum a valid file must contain.
  5. Press Quiz me. A yellow field node appears without its section. Click the section node it belongs to; the answer is marked at once, with a green or red edge. Press Next field in the panel for the next of eight fields.
  6. Use the navigation buttons in the corners to pan and zoom. You can drag nodes; they stay where you drop them.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

1
2
3
4
<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/microsims/sims/metadata-section-explorer/main.html"
        height="502px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Audience

Teachers, instructional designers, learning-technology developers and learning-analytics practitioners (college undergraduate and professional development).

Duration

15 minutes

Prerequisites

  • The five required and three optional sections introduced in Chapter 2
  • The Dublin Core element list in Chapter 15

Activities

  1. Predict the sections (3 min): Before expanding anything, write where you would expect tags, rights, canvasDimensions, prerequisites and controls to live. Then check.
  2. Required versus optional (4 min): With Required fields only on, expand each section and list the required fields. Compare dublinCore (eight required) with search (two).
  3. Quiz (5 min): Complete one quiz round of eight fields. For every miss, write the question that section answers (what it is, how to find it, who it is for, how it runs, what the learner touches).
  4. Discuss (3 min): version and dependencies are both in technical. Why must a library version never go in version?

Assessment

  • The learner places at least seven of eight quiz fields in the correct section.
  • Given a field name, the learner states whether the schema requires it.
  • The learner explains why subject, tags and searchKeywords live in different sections.

References

  1. Dublin Core - Wikipedia. The fifteen-element vocabulary behind the dublinCore section.
  2. JSON Schema - Official site of the schema language used by microsim-schema.json.
  3. vis-network documentation - The network library used to draw and expand the sections.