Re: [dpub] metadata TF recommendations

I think that this is great. Most of my commentary will come as we work
through the issues in the BISG Working Group, and I will be adding OWP
information to any talks that I give, since I¹m already evangelizing
standards regularly anyway. So this seemed like a natural sort of focus for
me and a logical set of recommendations from the TF.

From:  "Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken" <tsiegman@wiley.com>
Date:  Tuesday, September 30, 2014 at 1:24 PM
To:  "DPUB mailing list (public-digipub-ig@w3.org)"
<public-digipub-ig@w3.org>
Cc:  "bkasdorf@apexcovantage.com" <bkasdorf@apexcovantage.com>, Madi Solomon
<Madi.Solomon@pearson.com>
Subject:  [dpub] metadata TF recommendations
Resent-From:  <public-digipub-ig@w3.org>
Resent-Date:  Tue, 30 Sep 2014 17:25:20 +0000

Hi All,
 
Bill and Madi recently published an update to the metadata publication [1].
In it they include some recommendations for next steps for the DPUB metadata
task force and W3C [excerpt below].  Given the lively conversations
surrounding these topics that we¹ve seen on this list, it is surprising that
there has been no commentary on this. Is this where the TF should be headed?
Are there other areas on which you recommend a focus?
 
Thanks,
Tzviya
The Metadata Task Force of the W3C Digital Publishing Interest Group makes
the following general and specific recommendations to the W3C with regard to
the use of metadata within the OWP.
* Enable the use of existing vocabularies rather than creating new ones. The
vocabularies needed by different types of publishers vary tremendously, and
in order to be effective they tend to be highly specific to certain
disciplines, use cases, or sectors. A great number of these vocabularies
already exist and are in wide use within the communities they were designed
to serve. The role of the W3C should be to provide means to enable
publishers and others in the publishing ecosystem to efficiently and
effectively use those vocabularies in the three modes described at the
beginning of this section. Specific recommendation: TheW3C should
collaborate with BISG <http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-bisg> , the
Book Industry Study Group; EDItEUR
<http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-editeur> , the international
organization responsible for ONIX
<http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-onix> , the standard messaging
format for dissemimation of book supply chain metadata; and schema.org
<http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-schema.org> , which provides the
most commonly used means of embedding metadata in web content; and other
appropriate parties to develop an optimal way for book publishers to embed
appropriate and useful metadata in Web content based on the well known and
widely implemented ONIX <http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-onix>
model. The BISG <http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-bisg>  has already
formed a Working Group to address this issue from the point of view of its
US constituency, and that WG is chaired by the Executive Director of EDItEUR
<http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-editeur> , who can ensure that the
resulting recommendations are globally applicable.
* Educate publishers and their partners on how best to use existing features
of the OWP. While technical specifications, sometimes supplemented by
primers, are already provided on such features by the W3C, these are often
targeted at technical users. There is a need for much simpler, more
user-friendly documentation aimed at non-technical people within the
publishing ecosystem. There is also a need for much more aggressive
dissemination of this information throughout the publishing ecosystem to
demystify these features of the OWP and encourage their broad and proper use
both by creators and recipients of metadata. Specific recommendation: Focus
initially on encouraging proper understanding and use of URIs and of
RDF/RDFa.
EXAMPLE 1
CrossRef <http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-crossref> ‹which provides
(among other services) cross-publisher linking from citations to cited
publications using the DOI <http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-doi>
(the identifier that has become fundamental to the scholarly publishing
ecosystem)‹has for some time recommended that DOIs always be expressed in
the form of a URI. However, this is still seldom done because of the lack of
understanding of the URI by publishers and other participants in the
publishing ecosystem.
EXAMPLE 2
ISBN <http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/#dfn-isbn> s‹the primary product
identifier for books‹can also be expressed as a URI. Better understanding of
the URI and how to use it would be an important step in the improvement of
metadata implementation within Web content and systems.
EXAMPLE 3
Many publishers who lament the lack of ability to describe their content at
a very granular level are unaware of, or have only a vague understanding of,
RDF and RDFa, and these technologies are seldom implemented in the systems
used for the discovery and dissemination of publications. Better
understanding of RDF and RDFa across the publishing ecosystem could promote
the use of a technology that is currently significantly underutilized.
 
[1] http://w3c.github.io/dpub-metadata/
 
****************************
Tzviya Siegman * Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead * John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
111 River Street, MS 5-02 * Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774 * 201-748-6884 *
tsiegman@wiley.com <mailto:tsiegman@wiley.com>