Patent ID: 8250049

Claim:
A system comprising: a server connected to a network, the server storing meta data including a comment in the meta data within an XML document, the comment defining: a root tag associated with the document, the root tag having a numerical attribute representing a version number of the root tag; an identification of an additional tag contained within the root tag; a type attribute associated with the identified additional tag, the type attribute requiring a type of data contained within the identified additional tag; a name attribute associated with the identified additional tag, the name attribute requiring a name of the data contained within the identified additional tag; and the server configured to, responsive to identifying a learning resource related to the root tag, compare tag names of meta data associated with the identified resource to a list of name attributes included in the comment of the XML document to identify supported meta data of the identified learning resource; extract the meta data tag name and value pairs of supported meta data from the identified learning resource; generate a meta data document containing the root tag, the version number of the root tag, the identified additional tag associated with the name attribute of the supported meta data, and the extracted tag name and value pairs formatted according to the type attribute associated with the identified additional tag of the supported meta data; store the generated meta data document in a storage device; and subsequently access the generated meta data document in the storage device to retrieve information about the learning resource from the stored meta data document.