Rachel, I agree that a full explanation of the distinction between
"Cross-Domain" and "Domain-Specific" recommendation status is due to the
community from DCMI. However, what I am going to say here is my opinion and
_not_ a "full explanation" and clearly not "official" in any sense. Since I
was a lawyer in a past incarnation, I'd start by stating that the question
you raise has a lot to do with a version of what lawyers in the US call the
"burden of proof." Here's an example: a bounded community of practice
such as education might easily say that in making metadata statements about
its resources, it needs to make statements about the "audience." The burden
of proving that need is finite and doable. In fact, it has been done here
in DCMI. So, what has been proven is that the education community needs an
"audience" element--i.e., a "Domain-Specific" element. However, the burden
of proof for an assertion that an "audience" element is needed across all
domains is much harder to demonstrate.
So, I think this all means that if someone (or some group) had wanted to
take on the job of promoting "audience" as the 16th cross-domain element,
their task would have been formidable to say the least--echoes of "over my
dead body" ... and who has the time to gather the evidence of cross-domain
need?
However, _nothing_ in the DCMI model says that an element/element qualifier
that has a DCMI recommendation of "Domain Specific" cannot be used by ANY
discourse or practice community that finds it useful! So, instead of
bearing an immense burden of cross-domain proof, we let domain-specific DCMI
recommendations "percolate" up from domain-specific status to where many
domains find them useful _in practice_ (i.e., cross-domain).
Sorry, Rachel, I know little about machine-readable stuff---I can barely
read myself.
That's my sense of things.
Stuart
-----Original Message-----
From: Rachel Heery [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, February 08, 2002 4:11 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Domain specific: Proposal for audienceLevel Qualifier for the
Audience Element
On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Makx Dekkers wrote:
> The Usage Board announces the availability for review and public
> comment of a proposal for a new Audience element qualifier submitted
> to the Board by the DC-Education Working Group. The text of the
> proposal can be reached from the "News" link on the DC-Education
> Working Group page at http://www.dublincore.org/groups/education/.
>
I think it would be useful to accompany this recommendation with an
associated DCMI document which explains the way in which 'domain specific'
terms are distinguished from other DCMI elements and qualifiers. Are they
distinguished in any machine readable way? What exactly does 'domain
specific element qualifier status' mean?
It would be helpful to clarify what practical distinction there is
between domain specific terms (elements and qualifiers) and other DCMI
terms.
Rachel
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Rachel Heery
UKOLN
University of Bath tel: +44 (0)1225 826724
Bath, BA2 7AY, UK fax: +44 (0)1225 826838
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/
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