Thanks Andy for your valuable comments.
I think its worth my trying to explain some of the background and
process here and how this has and will proceed.
Firstly, I know Adam is working to open up the relationship between
communities on the ground and this standards work and I would completely
support his efforts there. Whatever ISO processes are, all of the
people who work on this and other standards I have worked on would want
important work such as this to be fully informed by community feedback
and for participation in development of the work to be as open as it can
be to all who wish to participate.
The history of this work is relevant to its state. Normally, work like
this in ISO goes through a vote at this point (called Final Committee
Draft (FCD)) after which there are *minor* revisions and another vote
called (Final Draft International Standard (FDIS)) and then it becomes a
standard. So *normally* (whatever that means) after *this* vote due in
February there would be another vote but only minor changes before it.
So one would expect the document at this point to be in good shape and
to be close to the final document. It is different in this case however
because of the history.
When this work started it was meant to be a bridge supporing maximal
compatibility between LOM and Semantic-web-oriented approaches.
Speaking very loosely (glossing over technical points that can be
addressed later) the meaning of "Semantic-web-oriented approaches" here
I take to be DC plus stuff not in DC (I *know* we need to talk
specifics, such as arguments about Identifiers - see later).
Interoperabiity was intended to be both ways to the maximum amount possible.
Since beginning the work, it has shifted *very* considerably towards
DC/Semantic Web and away from LOM. The aim of *many* people working on
this standard would be that there is no explicit support for LOM at all
in the framework but that it enables such support to be incorporated in
Application Profiles where required. The intent is complete
compatibility with DC, extendability and modifiability, and ability to
support LOM where this does not detract from its use with DC etc. The
degree to which any support for LOM is of value is to me questionable,
but this is International work and some large countries with substantial
LOM work would like support for that (and still call it MLR) while
moving in the direction of Semantic Web.
These very significant changes have happened at such a late stage
in the process that in my opinion the state of the documentation is not
as good as it needs to be and substantial drafting work still needs to
be done to achieve a good state. In order to meet ISO constraints on
how long development of a standard can take substantial work is
happening late in the process.
It is my personal view that the underlying model to this work is very
good. I also know of and am involved with Accessibility work in IMS
that is attempting to harmonise with it. I declare this as a statement
of my partiality. However, if I am at the meetings where this work is
progressed (as I intend to be) I will do my best to represent the UK
consensus impartially, whatever that is - we all want solutions that
work and best serve everybody.
At the last meetings where this was worked on, in Sweden in September
this year, a number of simplifications were agreed. After the meetings
the editors went away to prepare another draft, for vote - this is what
you are commenting on.
I'm not convinced from the documentation that all of these
simplifications has happened. I was expecting the documentation to be
shorter and simpler and some of the more complex material in here to
have gone in this version. It *is* a long, hard to understand document.
I do, as I have stated however, think that the underlying model here is
the best game in town for moving the Metadata in eLearning picture
forwards - *IF* we can iron out the problems.
What will happen now is that there is a vote on this draft UK have a
vote through BSI IST/43. Accompanying the vote will be (can be) UK
comments. It is required for the work to progress that the comments are
addressed. There will be a week of meetings in March 2010 where
comments will be argued about and addressed. Whoever represents the UK
position in those meetings will likely be asked "if we changed P, Q, R
to X, Y, Z" then would the UK vote on the standard be to accept it?".
Following that another draft will be prepared on which there will be a
simple "yes/no" national vote. Only after that vote will it become an
International Standard (if it passes).
In other words - work will take place in those meetings to which the UK
will input and its important that the right input is made if people
think this is work worth progressing.
At the IST/43 meetings where we discussed this I said that my view was
to basically support the work but that the drafts were very complex,
that refinement was still needed and serious expert community feedback
was needed in order to ensure that the right technical comments were
placed in front of the community working on this in SC36. Adam agreed to
kick the ball off on that and here we are in discussion.
One might argue that this is not a good standard at all, or one might
argue that the ideas would be sound if X and if Y and so on.
I take on board Andy's points about identifiers - actually it was my
understanding that this would already have been addressed in this draft
- we certainly discussed it in Sweden.
So any technical feedback/comment that anyone has is incredibly useful.
Whoever is in the room arguing the UK position in the meetings in March
2010 needs to be armed with that comment - and we need to incorporate it
in the formal UK comments.
Andy
>> I think there are some counter arguments to Andy Powell's comments,
>> some of which I don't see as completely justified (some, such as
>> length and complexity I see as justified). For example the fact
>> that RDF is a model not a binding is well-understood by the group
>> working on it, but that clearly does not show well in the
>> documentation. What this proposed standard *is* doing is
>> attempting to provide a semantic-web-like approach which supports
>> Dublin Core and properties that are not Dublin Core whilst at the
>> same time providing some backwards support for LOM where that does
>> not conflict (a tough thing to do, politically AND technically).
>
> Andy, That's pretty much what we tried to do in DCMI with the DC
> Abstract Model - bridging the gap between the 'old' world of library
> approaches to cataloguing (MARC, etc - from which DC inherited much
> of its approach in the early days) and the 'new' world of the
> Semantic Web and Linked Data.
>
> I've argued on the DC Advisory Board mailing list that the DC
> Abstract Model fails as a bridge because it alienates both sides.
> People who are used to MARC records struggle to deal with 'strings vs
> things' type arguments and the widespread use of URIs for stuff.
> People who already understand the Semantic Web just see the Abstract
> Model as useless fluff that gets in the way.
>
> So I appreciate the problem.
>
> I don't think that's any excuse for not citing the things that people
> are claiming to be trying to 'adopt'. As things stand currently, one
> can't support Dublin Core in any semantically valid sense without
> adopting the Dublin Core Abstract Model. This implies adopting the
> RDF Model. In turn that means adopting URIs as the identifiers in
> use. So I'd expect to see all these things being cited and used
> directly in the document. These are firm technical requirements.
>
> Note that I am not commenting on the quality of this standard other
> than w.r.t. the question of whether it successfully supports DC and
> RDF. It may well be a perfectly good spec in other ways - I haven't
> read it hard enough to comment. I have read it hard enough to
> suggest (to me) that it doesn't go far enough to support DC and RDF
> (assuming that is what it is trying to do) other than in a very fuzzy
> way.
>
> Best,
>
> Andy.
>
Cheers
andy
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Andy Heath
http://www.axelafa.com
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