JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for DC-USAGE Archives


DC-USAGE Archives

DC-USAGE Archives


DC-USAGE@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

DC-USAGE Home

DC-USAGE Home

DC-USAGE  March 2006

DC-USAGE March 2006

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

Re: Updated Wikipedia article

From:

Andy Powell <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

A mailing list for the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative's Usage Board <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 11:55:30 -0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (143 lines)

Yes, I agree with this... though it's certainly not easy to come up with
the one paragraph summary of what DC is.  That's one of our problems!
But talking about 'elements', 'simple' and 'qualified' doesn't help
much!

Here's my stab at a summary...

--- cut ---

Dublin Core (DC) is a metadata standard for describing a wide range of
digital, physical and conceptual resources (i.e. just about anything!).

A DC description is made up of a set of statements, each of which
comprises a property/value pair.  Typically, the described resource is
identified using its URI and the value is either identified using its
URI or represented using a simple string (the 'value string').  In many
cases, multiple descriptions are combined in order to build up richer
descriptions ('description sets') about related groups of resources.
For example, in describing a digitised painting, it may also be
appropriate to describe the original painting from which the
digitisation was made and the original artist, thus creating a
description set of three related descriptions.  Statements may be
refined by indicating the language of the value string, any data-type
('syntax encoding scheme') to which the value string conforms or the
class ('vocabulary encoding scheme') from which the value is taken.
Properties, syntax encoding schemes, vocabulary encoding schemes and
concepts in controlled vocabularies are known as 'terms'.  All terms in
DC metadata are assigned URIs, and schema languages are used to indicate
the relationships between them.

The features of the DC metadata standard are fully described in the
Dublin Core Abstract Model (DCAM).

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI), the body that facilitates
the community development of the DC metadata standard, provides a core
set of about 80 properties, encoding schemes and controlled vocabularies
from which descriptions can be constructed, but encourages communities
to create additional terms as necessary, within the framework provided
by the DCAM.

Finally, the DCMI community has defined three encoding syntaxes that can
be used to encode DC metadata records for exchange between software
systems and services using XHTML, XML and RDF.

Historically, DC refered to properties as 'elements' and is perhaps best
known for the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set (DCMES) - a set of 15
elements, created originally to support the discovery of resources on
the Web.

--- cut ---

This, rightly(!), relegates DCMES to a footnote and doesn't even mention
simple and qualified! :-)

On the face of it, it may seem harder to grasp than the traditional
'element', DCMES, 'simple DC', 'qualified DC' approach - but I think
that is largely to do with where we come from.  Personally, I think it
is much clearer - it emphasises what is important and ignores what can
safely be forgotten.

Andy
--
Head of Development, Eduserv Foundation
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/
[log in to unmask]
+44 (0)1225 474319 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: A mailing list for the Dublin Core Metadata 
> Initiative's Usage Board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On 
> Behalf Of Pete Johnston
> Sent: 21 March 2006 11:05
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Updated Wikipedia article
> 
> Diane I. Hillmann wrote:
> > Folks:
> > 
> > I went in and changed the page: 
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Core
> > using stuff from "Using Dublin Core" primarily.
> > 
> > You're welcome to see what you think and do some editing 
> yourself, if 
> > you've a mind to do so. I won't take it personally, I promise!
> 
> I haven't edited the document on Wikipedia (yet), and I don't 
> really want to do so unilaterally, but (and this really 
> applies to other introductory resources like the "Using 
> Dublin Core" document and like the conference tutorials) I 
> think that the role of the DCMI Abstract Model as providing 
> the conceptual framework for DC should be presented more "up 
> front" e.g. there should be a short/simplified summary 
> description of the DCAM in the introductory section, or as a 
> separate section following the intro and before the 
> discussion of Simple DC and Qualified DC. Mentioning the DCAM 
> _only_ as a tool for comparing different syntaxes is only 
> telling half the story (IMHO) - though I think the DCAM doc 
> itself might be slightly more "bullish" in its own intro 
> paragraph! ;-).
> 
> Now sure, I appreciate that that might look like a case of 
> "historical revisionism" to the casual observer who knows 
> "the 15 elements came first" (or indeed only knows the 15 
> elements), but I do think we need to shift firmly towards 
> putting the DCAM at the centre of our explanations of "what 
> DC is". (If people want a history of the evolution of DC, and 
> how DCMI got from "the 15 elements" to "the qualifiers" to 
> the grammatical principles to the DCAM, OK, that's fine, but 
> that's a different document.)
> 
> I recognise this probably goes against the way we've tended 
> to introduce DC, but I'd go as far as saying that it is 
> confusing/unhelpful to start talking about "elements" without 
> first describing the DCAM, at least in some way - maybe not 
> every fine detail, but the fundamental points about making 
> statements that assert relationships between resources and 
> values. Without such "contextual" information, it just begs 
> the question of what an "element" is. It makes a "leap of 
> faith" that readers already share a common understanding of 
> what an element is, but (as we've found out somewhat 
> painfully over the last few years), that is not the case: 
> the term "element" is used to refer to different things in 
> different contexts and readers draw their own (different, 
> incompatible) conclusions ("Ah, they're talking about XML 
> elements", "Ah, so they're referring to things like LOM 
> elements", "Ah, they mean attribute-value pairs" etc etc etc).
> 
> I think the account of "Simple Dublin Core" also blurs the 
> distinction between the DCMES as a set of terms, each of 
> which may be deployed in many different "DC application 
> profiles" with different constraints on their usage in a 
> description set, and "Simple Dublin Core" as one such DCAP 
> with one particular set of constraints. And in the account of 
> "Qualified DC" I'm not sure the word "value" is being used in 
> the way it is used in the DCAM. I think phrases like "the 
> value may still be useful to a human reader" suggest that the 
> reference is to (what the DCAM
> calls) "value strings".
> 
> Pete
> 

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
February 2023
January 2023
September 2022
July 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
October 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
January 2020
October 2019
September 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
March 2019
February 2019
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
March 2018
May 2015
November 2014
October 2014
April 2014
February 2014
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
September 2011
May 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
June 2010
May 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004
September 2004
August 2004
July 2004
June 2004
May 2004
April 2004
March 2004
February 2004
January 2004
December 2003
November 2003
October 2003
September 2003
August 2003
July 2003
June 2003
May 2003
April 2003
March 2003
February 2003
January 2003
December 2002
November 2002
October 2002
September 2002
August 2002
July 2002
June 2002
May 2002
April 2002
March 2002
February 2002
January 2002
December 2001
November 2001
October 2001
September 2001
August 2001
July 2001
June 2001
May 2001
December 2000
September 2000
August 2000
June 2000
May 2000
April 2000
March 2000
February 2000
January 2000
December 1999
November 1999


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager