Re: SKOS use cases format

Hi Antoine,

Antoine Isaac wrote:
> 
> 2. Independance of vocabulary section with respect to functionality section
> I think that from our SKOS perspective it's important to emphasize on 
> the vocabulary section for use case description. Even if you make the 
> point in [3] that application focus is crucial, SKOS is finally about 
> representing vocabularies. And I believe it's important for use case 
> providers that they can express their needs with respect to this core 
> aspect of their business. And therefore to do it in a section thay can 
> immediately identify.

How about if we divide a use case into two sections, a 
"vocabulary(ies)" section and an "application" section?

The "vocabulary(ies)" section would come first, and be centred around 
extracts from one or more vocabularies.

The "application" section would come second, and provide a description 
of a current or proposed application of the vocabulary(ies).

If a vocab has already been described in another use case, then a 
submission could be "application-only" and refer to the previous use 
case where the vocabulary is described.

We could indicate that we would accept "vocab-only" submissions, but 
encourage submissions that include an application.

> 
> 3. Link to ISO standards.
> Guus mentioned in [4] that we should link the use case to ISO standards. 
> I think we should encourage the contributors to do so, if their case is 
> already linked to it. I favor the addition of a "(non)compliance with 
> existing encoding/representational standards" item in the vocabulary 
> section. But I think we should mention the fact that filling this item 
> is not mandatory, some vocabularies being developped outside of such 
> considerations.

I think it's important that we encourage submissions to present 
extracts from their vocabulary(ies) according to whatever 
human-readable layout(s)/format(s) they already use within the given 
application (or intend to use within a planned application).

I think it would be good to know if any particular standards or 
guidelines were followed in the construction, maintenance and/or 
presentation of the vocabularies. If a particular standard has been 
followed, we could also ask the submission to highlight if any 
decisions were made to diverge from the standard, why those decisions 
were made, and diverge in what way.

However, note that ISO 2788 doesn't really define a notion of 
"compliance" or "conformance", and that there is plenty of room for 
interpretation within that standard - so asking whether a vocabulary 
"complies" with ISO 2788 may not give us much information.

Cheers,

Alistair.

-- 
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman
Email: a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440

Received on Tuesday, 21 November 2006 15:13:34 UTC