Last year I worked on the drafting of British Standard BS 8419 Interoperability between metadata systems used for learning, education and training, as a member of team including Futurate, Knowledge Integration and Seb Schmoller.
The standard is in two parts: Part 1 is Code of practice for the development of localized metadata systems; Part 2 is Code of practice for the development of interoperability between metadata systems .
Both parts are now available from BSI as Drafts for Public Comment, with a deadline for comments of 31 May 02004. Subject to the scope of comments received, the final standard will be published later in the year.