This message has been sent to DC-General on behalf of Makx Dekkers, DCMI
Managing Director (email: [log in to unmask]).
Dear all,
In the last month, I have continued my activities to get an overview
of the status of all the work items in the various Working Groups,
Interest Groups and other committees of DCMI.
As a result of this, I have produced an overall status report of the
Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, looking at all activities that have
taken place since DC-8 in October 2000 in Ottawa.
You will find the link to the report on the DCMI homepage as of
today. <http://dublincore.org/news/communications/statusreport-200104.shtml>
In the report, I have done two things.
First of all, the report contains a section describing the outline
for the organisational transition of the DCMI, a process that was
started by the Directorate with the Advisory Committee in Ottawa and
was further developed in a meeting in February 2001 in Madeira. The
plan isn't finished yet, but you will be able to see the directions
that we are taking.
Secondly, the report contains a short description of all the groups
and their activities in the past period and looks ahead to the things
that are still to be done. For me, and I know for many of the chairs,
this exercise was very useful, and I hope it is useful for you as
participants in our work as well.
As I said in my message of 23 March, one of my priorities was to
identify the deliverables that are ready for review and publication.
As a first tangible result, you have seen the recent announcement of
the new version of the user guide that is now out for public comment.
Thanks to Diane Hillmann for getting this done, of course with the
contribution of other members of the User Guide WG.
I identified seven further documents that are in the process of
being finalized:
- WG Architecture: An XML encoding of Simple Dublin Core Metadata.
Authors: Dave Beckett, Eric Miller, Dan Brickley
Status: being finalized for external review
- WG Architecture: Dublin Core Qualifiers (HTML encoded META).
Author: Simon Cox, Eric Miller, Andy Powell
Status: being finalized for external review
- WG Architecture: Expressing Qualified Dublin Core in RDF.
Authors: Roland Schwaenzl, Stefan Kokkelink
Status: under review in WG and W3C RDF groups
- WG Education: Proposal for dc-ed:level
Author: Jon Mason, Stuart Sutton
Status: review by Usage Board, 21-22 May 2001
- Usage Board: Policy and process for qualifier approval
Author: Tom Baker and members of Usage Board
Status: review by Usage Board, 21-22 May 2001
- Namespace policy for DCMI
Author: Stu Weibel
Status: being finalized for external review
The review procedures are currently under development, and we hope
to distribute more information shortly, as part of a general
document on our Publication Strategy.
I would like to draw your special attention to the document
'Expressing Qualified Dublin Core in RDF', currently under discussion
in the Architecture WG. This is one of the most important work items
at the moment, and the chairs of the working group, together with the
authors Roland Schwaenzl and Stefan Kokkelink are working to get this
document finalized as soon as possible. It will form an important
basis for the implementation of the Dublin Core in RDF and we are
happy that we are co-operating with the RDF Interest Group at W3C in
this area.
Apart from finalizing the process for the documents above, there are
a number of important priorities for the very near future:
- The organization of the Workshop and Conference in October in Tokyo.
This is now underway, with the imminent publication of the Call for
Papers. By the end of May, in co-operation with the working group
chairs, we will draft a preliminary program for the workshop part
- Further development of the organizational structures and practical
steps towards the transition, which includes exploration of funding
options.
You will find other things that are going on in the various groups in
the status report, and you can see which groups are expecting to have
results in the near future.
As always, feel free to contact me if you have any queries or
comments.
Makx.
NB. Please note the change in my e-mail address.
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Makx Dekkers e-mail: [log in to unmask]
tel: +352 25 33 07 fax: +352 25 33 08 GSM: +352 021 1999 10
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