Re: Requirements for profiles

On 11/18/17 4:26 AM, Ruben Verborgh wrote:
> Hi Karen,
> 
>> Ruben, I think this is a variant view of profiles, so we should discuss
>> it as a group. The APs that exist today for DCAT are complete
>> descriptions of all of the elements of a metadata schema.
> 
> Just a reminder that there is a difference
> between "profile" in the generic sense,
> and "DCAT profile" in the specific sense.
> 
> So there is no contradiction, as I was talking about generic profiles.

Therefore we need a good strong definition of "profile" so we can talk
about this.

We need to know what functions a profile supports, in its most general
terms. The Dublin Core profiles may be more specific than this, because
their definition includes "application":

"The term profile is widely used to refer to a document that describes
how standards or specifications are deployed to support the requirements
of a particular application, function, community, or context. In the
metadata community, the term _application profile_has been applied to
describe the tailoring of standards for specific applications." [1]

The AP in DCAT-AP is "Application Profile" although there isn't a
general definition of what is meant by AP. The document says:

"The objective behind DCAT is to facilitate data findability,
cross-reference and interoperability between data catalogues on the web
by adding a thin layer of agreed upon metadata, to ensure consistency." [2]

Our charter also refers to "application profiles" and the deliverable reads:

"Guidance on publishing application profiles of vocabularies.
A definition of what is meant by an application profile and an
explanation of one or more methods for publishing and sharing them." [3]

If "profile" is more general than "application profile", we need a
definition for that. We may also determine that defining "profile"
generically, while possibly useful to the world at large, is out of
scope for our work.

Could you please create a "straw person" definition for "generic
profile" as a starting point? That would help us begin to understand
what it means.

kc
[1] http://dublincore.org/documents/singapore-framework/
[2]
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/solution/dcat-application-profile-data-portals-europe
[3] https://www.w3.org/2017/dxwg/charter

> 
> Also, not all profiles have to be "combinable",
> so it is fine if DCAT profiles are not.
> 
>> As I read them
>> they cannot be combined as they are, nor can parts or fragments be
>> combined as new profiles because they haven't been designed to be
>> uniformly combinable. That is an interesting interpretation but not one
>> that we have yet as a requirement.
> 
> We should, I think. It follows from 5.3.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Ruben
> 
> 

-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: 1-510-435-8234 (Signal)
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600

Received on Saturday, 18 November 2017 17:34:59 UTC