Quoting Thomas Baker <[log in to unmask]>:
> Two issues however:
>
> 1) To start with statements, property-value pairs, and URIs is
> to jump in at the deep end. The notion of "core metadata
> properties" has been and should continue to be a key part
> of the message. Introducing "the Dublin Core" up-front also
> helps explain the funny name.
>
> > 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,
>
> I suspect that the notion of "core metadata properties" really
> is easier for most people to grasp than the notion of an
> abstract model. I would not want DCMI to lose that focus --
> 80 properties is no longer really a "core".
Unless we explain what we mean by "property", and show how properties
are used in DC metadata (to construct simple statements that assert
relationships between resources), then we are left with the same
problem with the word "property" that we have now with the word
"element".
Agreed, "property" maybe comes with slightly less "baggage" than
"element", but I've had experience of people picking up on my tendency
to use "property" rather than "element" and altering their usage
accordingly. But unless I explain why I'm saying property - what a
property is - then they think I'm using it simply as a synonym, and
they start using "property" for all the contexts in which they were
using "element", including ways which are inconsistent with the DCAM.
And - perhaps even worse - they start to apply the term "property" to
things defined in other meta-models - where those thinga are not
properties at all, and the "native" (to that meta-model) term "element"
is indeed the most appropriate term.
Whatever we call the fifteen things, we have to explain what they are
and how they are used.
Pete
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Pete Johnston
Research Officer (Interoperability)
UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK
tel: +44 (0)1225 383619 fax: +44 (0)1225 386838
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/ukoln/staff/p.johnston/
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