The DC CD WG met on Wednesday 4 October 2006 at DC-2006 in Manzanillo,
Mexico and the meeting was attended by about 15-20 participants. The
slides presented are available [1].

1. Review of Activity 2005/2006

Pete Johnston introduced the activity of the WG and summarised the work
completed on the DC Collection Description Application Profile [2]
during 2005/2006:

- minor revisions following provisional Usage Board review at DC-2005
- resolution of location/service modelling issues (see also below)
- resolution of how to represent item format and item type
- specification of how to describe collection-description separately
from how to describe collection (see also below)
- assignment of term URIs and preparation of human- and machine-readable
versions of all term descriptions
- initial discussions of term ownership/maintenance and DCAP
ownership/maintenance
- submission of DC CD AP 2006-08-24 for review by DCMI UB

N.B. The specification of a syntax encoding scheme for open-ended date
ranges has not yet been completed by the DCMI Date WG; provisionally,
the DC CD AP references a SES specified by the National Archives of
Australia Recordkeeping Metadata Standard.

2. Provisional Report of DCMI UB Review of DC CD AP

Pete Johnston gave a provisional summary of the comments made by the
DCMI UB in their review of the DC CD AP during their meeting in
Manzanillo. Overall, the UB did not see any major problems with the
profile. However the following issues were raised.

2.1 Editorial
- Clarify the scope and purpose (e.g. examples of types of collections
to be described, applications that could be supported). 

2.2 Data Model
- Clarify the relationship to Mike Heaney's AMCC (which parts of AMCC
used, where DC CD AP model modifies/extends AMCC)
- Collection-Description v Collection distinction is difficult to
understand, largely because of terminology used. Needs
revision/clarification.
- Concept of Location is not well defined for Digital Collections.
Suggest limiting is-Located-At relationship to case of Collections of
Physical Items (i.e. two slightly different data models for Physical
Collection and Digital Collection)  
- Concept of Item from AMCC ("The concrete realisation of Content") is
based on FRBR, and excludes many types of resources. Suggest replacing
with more general concept of Resource. 

2.3 DCAP Issues
- Some lack of specificity in use of VES/SES (e.g. Size/dcterms:extent),
requirement for value strings (e.g. Location/cld:isLocatedAt) 

3. Future Activity

Message to mailing list re options for future work [3] had generated
very limited response.

At the meeting of the DCMI Advisory Board prior to DC-2006, a new
structure for technical work was discussed and approved. DCMI Working
Groups will be restructured as DCMI Communities and DCMI Task Groups:

- A DCMI Community, with a Web page and mailing list, will serve as a
forum for open discussion on special topics or domain applications.
- A DCMI Task Group will develop specific deliverables such as
application profiles on a DCMI wiki.

It was proposed that

- A "Task Group" should be constituted to finalise the DC CD AP and to
establish procedures for the ownership/maintenance of terms and for the
ownership/maintenance of the DC CD AP itself
- A Community should be provided to offer a broader forum for
implementers of the DC CD AP and for broader discussion of issues
related to collection-level description.

Pete Johnston stood down as chair of the WG at DC-2006. If this proposal
is accepted by the DCMI Directorate/Advisory Board, a new chair (or
chairs) will be required for the Community and also a
co-ordinator/leader for the Task Group. Three candidates had expressed
an interest in some aspect of this work, and some consultation with
these individuals would be required to finalise roles in the light of
the proposed restructuring.

5. WG Member Presentations

Ann Apps (MIMAS, University of Manchester) gave a presentation "IESR, A
Registry of Collections and Services: Using the DCMI Collection
Description Profile in Practice" [4], on the use of metadata within the
JISC Information Environment Service Registry, which uses a DC
application profile based closely on the DC CD AP.

[1] http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/publications/2006-10-dc-cd/
[2]
http://dublincore.org/groups/collections/collection-application-profile/
[3]
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0608&L=dc-collections&P
=2010
[4] http://epub.mimas.ac.uk/papers/dc2006/apps-iesr-dc20061004.ppt

Cheers

Pete

---
Pete Johnston
Technical Researcher, Eduserv Foundation
Web: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/people/petejohnston/
Weblog: http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/
Email: [log in to unmask] 
Tel: +44 (0)1225 474323