At the meeting of the DCMI Architecture Forum at the DC-2007 conference
in Singapore, there was some discussion of the two current proposals for
encoding DC description sets in XML [2, 3]. The main outcomes were:
- DCMI should have one recommended XML format for encoding description
sets in XML; other agencies may define other XML formats.
- That DCMI-recommended XML format should support the full DCAM
description set model.
- The primary emphasis should be on machine-processability
(completeness/ease of parsing).
- The format should be designed so that the number of alternate
syntactic forms for a single construct in the DCAM description model is
limited; ideally, each construct in the DCAM description model should
have a single corresponding construct in the syntax.
On this basis we decided in a recent DCMI Architecture Forum telecon [4]
to move forward with a slightly revised version of the current
DC-XML-Full proposal, amended to reduce the number of variations in the
ways in which URIs are encoded i.e. all DCAM Described Resource URIs,
Value URIs, VES URIs and SES URIs will be represented as attribute
values using the same convention(s). The form to be used is to be
decided, the options being conidered being URI references (URI or
relative reference), "DC-XML Qualified Names" (or similar convention
defined within the spec itself), or CURIEs (see below).
Aside on CURIEs: I noticed that the W3C XHTML 2 Working Group has
published an updated version of the CURIE Syntax [5]. I was slightly
surprised to see this, as I had thought that the plan was that CURIEs
would be defined in a way which was "local" to the RDFa specification,
but I guess I had misunderstood. Anyway, I suppose this puts CURIEs back
on the table as an option (though I note that doc is still a Working
Draft).
We should also try to ensure a sensible alignment of XML
element/attribute names in this format and in the XML format for
representing DC Description Set Profiles [6].
A revised proposal for DC-XML will be made available on the DCMI
Architecture Forum wiki before the end of December with the intent of
developing a Proposed Recommendation for public comment as soon as
possible, probably early in 2008.
[1]
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0709&L=dc-architecture&
P=373
[2]
http://dublincore.org/architecturewiki/DCXMLRevision/DCXMLFGuidelines/20
07-06-19
[3]
http://dublincore.org/architecturewiki/DCXMLRevision/DCXMLMGuidelines/20
07-06-19
[4]
http://dublincore.org/architecturewiki/DcarchTelecons/MeetingNotes200710
26
[5] http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-curie-20071126/
[6] http://dublincore.org/architecturewiki/DescriptionSetProfile
---
Pete Johnston
Technical Researcher, Eduserv Foundation
Web: http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/people/petejohnston/
Weblog: http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44 (0)1225 474323
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