"Oh not another working group", I hear you sigh. "They're breeding like
rabbits. Hmmm, rabbits belong in Canberra, not in Helsinki ...?".
Following some very interesting late-night round-table conversations in the
Grand Marina's bar re DC and RDF, we concluded that all is not well with
the DC Data Model. Not to put too fine a point on it, there ain't one.
This has led to some confusion and some contortions, which have been no
more than a nuisance in the HTML world but would, if left untreated,
prevent us from making good use of the New World of RDF.
The questions that have been asked include:
1. Will it be possible to automatically convert qualified DC metadata
from HTML to RDF?
2. Are some of the "sub-elements" currently in use not sub-elements at
all, but rather names with lots of dots in them? How will these
impact point 1 above?
3. Are lang and scheme simply generic sub-elements for which we've
invented a convenient HTML notation? How do they map to RDF?
4. Why are important groups (eg AHDS and the museum community) having
to play creative tricks with elements like DC.Creator,
DC.Contributor, DC.Publisher? How will these impact point 1 above?
The DC Data Model working group was set up at Helsinki to discuss these
and similar questions. The group aims to:
- develop a Data Model for both unqualified and qualified Dublin Core
metadata,
- consider the mapping of both unqualified and qualified Dublin Core
metadata to RDF,
- make recommendations for the development of Dublin Core metadata,
consistent with the automated conversion of such metadata from HTML
to RDF.
As the questions span quite a broad area, the Data Model working group will
work closely with other working groups, including the Sub-Elements working
group, the Relation.Type working group, and others.
At DC-5, I agreed to chair the Data Model working group and would welcome
your participation.
Paul Miller has kindly offered to set up the dc-datamodel discussion list
on the Mailbase service. If you want to join it, please drop him a line
at:
Paul Miller ([log in to unmask])
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