Thanks Tom,
I suspected it was a case of fit-for-purpose. I always assumed
something would be added to DCMI Type during the Agent work, vocab terms
are definitely less obvious.
The question is whether the 'purpose' it is trying to fit has changed
again? Now we're moving into the SW/LD/RDF/OWL/etc. world, anything can
be a described resource - triples don't cast judgement! In a bunch of
triples gathered from multiple sources you can certainly bump up against
descriptions of documents, objects, people, concepts, etc. all mashed
together.
Maybe this is where DC could be useful to normalise it all for grouping?
A little owl:sameAs-ing (or similar) could make presenting the list a
lot easier, eg:
foaf:name -> dc:title
skos:prefLabel -> dc:title
foaf:Person -> dcmitype:Entity
skos:Concept -> dcmitype:Concept
But maybe I'm the only person that's come up against this?
Cheers,
Douglas
-----Original Message-----
From: DCMI Architecture Forum [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Thomas Baker
Sent: Wednesday, 24 November 2010 3:03 p.m.
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [DC-ARCHITECTURE] Gaps in DCMI Type?
Hi Douglas,
On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 01:07:53PM +1300, Douglas Campbell wrote:
> I have an historic question I'd like to ask...
I can remember back that far...
> I like the idea of DCMI Type being an uber-classification list - it
> means I can assign a basic class type for ANY resource that I come
> across. However there are two types of resources I have trouble
> assigning a DCMI Type to - people and vocabulary terms - or to
> generalise, animate objects (entities?) and concepts.
>
> If I have a set of all kinds of resources in it I can look for the
> DCMI Type assigned to know how to process/present most resources, but
> for people/terms there can be no DCMI Type value so I have to know
> about other type schemas to try to work out what 'type' they are, eg.
> look for skos:Concept, MARC relator codes, etc. Even then I can't
> attach this derived knowledge back into the record as there is no term
> in the DCMI Type vocab to use.
>
> Just wondering if there is a reason these types didn't make it into
> DCMI Type?
The scope of the DCMI Type Vocabulary was never defined explicitly, that
I am aware, but I would argue that the implicit scope was "things
usefully describable with the Dublin Core". The scope of the Dublin
Core, seen as a functional vocabulary, was initially taken to be
document-like objects, later information resources, and eventually just
resources, which included things like physical objects, software, sound,
services, and events.
DCMI Metadata Terms was never seen as a vocabulary particularly
well-suited to describing people though I recall hearing about some
unhappy implementers who tried to shoehorn descriptions of people into
OAI's schema for Simple Dublin Core. I do not recall any particular
discussions in the Dublin Core context about the description of
concepts.
The DCMI Type Vocabulary solved a practical need, but that I am aware,
there were no serious efforts to turn it into a more philosophically
grounded and comprehensive ontology of "things in the world".
Tom
> The DCMI Type Vocab definition (as from 2008) is:
> "The set of classes specified by the DCMI Type Vocabulary, used to
> categorize the nature or genre of the resource."
> It also has a longer description (on the document page):
> "...provides a general, cross-domain list of approved terms that may
> be used as values for the Resource Type element to identify the genre
> of a resource."
> The original definition was:
> "A list of types used to categorize the nature or genre of the
> content of the resource."
>
> Cheers,
> Douglas Campbell
> Te Papa
>
>
>
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