dcap

Requirements and motivation for a DC-AP

(this file copied from https://github.com/kcoyle/RDF-AP/blob/master/requirements.md)

Why? Who? What? How? Why do we want to create profiles? Who needs them? What functions do they need to provide? How will they work?

Why?

Help someone else understand your data well enough to make use of it. This is not unlike the more general problem with open source: you can declare your code ‘open’ and wish people ‘good luck’ or you can provide support.

• To understand variations
  • on a standard
  • among partners
  • within a community
  • along a workflow
• To build consensus
  • by making decisions visible
  • by providing a focus for process
• To drive applications
  • that validate different data representations
    • create Schemas for XML (XSD, RelaxNG), JSON (JSON Schema), RDF (SHACL, ShEx)
• To drive user interfaces
  • input forms
  • displays
• To provide a framework for developing metadata templates

Who?

• Creators: anyone providing data
• Users
  • anyone who can/is allowed to access the data
  • both people AND machines - not an either/or, but should be both (? if not both, then people?)

What?

• To describe the basic structure of the data
  • To characterize the story that the data is designed to tell
  • To characterize the things described, and how they are described
  • To enumerate the elements that “anchor” a dataset? (E.g., the unique keys of a dbms: what has to be there to make the data useful)
• To describe the content of the data in more detail
  • subjects - properties - objects
  • things - attributes - values
• To describe the things that the metadata is “about”
  • How are those things defined?
  • How are they described?
  • How are the things related among themselves
  • What things can stand alone (i.e., be described independently of related things)?
• Properties, attributes, elements (use the one that makes most sense to you, assume they are the same)
  • What properties define the things? are required?
  • What are the relationships between properties?
• Objects, values (same)
  • What is the value type or types for each property
  • what are/is the range of/ valid values
  • can values change? How?
• To describe relationships between values (e.g. start date <= end date)

Administration of the profile

• Versioning
• Creator
• Rights

  How?

• markdown -> html
• wiki
• html with schema.org