Re: [dxwg] Relation to real world entities

@jpullmann said:

> Thanks, @andrea-perego, I'll evaluate the note on Spatial Data. The "world context" is often essential while searching for a particular type of data - e.g. service providers may search for status logs they maintain.

Sorry, @jpullmann , I didn't mean to be sarcastic. The point is that the relationship between a real-world entity and its description has been a (controversial) topic for all the duration of the SDWWG.

Coming to the issue under discussion, IMO the problem is not whether the referred resource is or is not a real-world entity, but rather the type of relationship existing between the dataset and that resource.

For instance:
- "This dataset has been created with observations taken by a given sensor (or more than one)": this could be potentially be specified by using PROV (+, possibly, SOSA/SSN)
- "This dataset describes a specific spatial thing (or more that one)": this is theoretically already supported with the property used for spatial coverage (`dct:spatial`).
- "This dataset describes a specific temporal thing (or more that one)": this is theoretically already supported with the property used for temporal coverage (`dct:temporal`).
- "This dataset describes a specific thing (or more than one)": this is a more generic case, where the spatial / temporal characteristics may not be relevant. If I understand correctly, this corresponds to the general use case behind this requirement. Here a possible option could be using [`wdrs:describedby`](https://www.w3.org/2007/05/powder-s#describedby) to link the thing to the dataset (@philarcher , what do you think?). BTW, this property has been also included in the [IANA link relations register](https://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/link-relations.xhtml), along with its inverse (`describes`), defined in [RFC6892](http://www.iana.org/go/rfc6892),

About the use of `dct:subject`, I would not go that way, as `dct:subject` is too generic. But maybe we can be inspired by the RDF Data Cube vocabulary, where the use of `dct:subject` is complemented with notions as `qb:dimension` and `qb:measure`.

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Received on Friday, 23 March 2018 23:36:27 UTC