Re: dwbp-ISSUE-134 (BernadetteLoscio): About Formats, schemas, vocabularies and data models [Best practices document(s)]

Hi Bernadette,

Thanks!

I'm afraid it's still not clear. In Semantic Web parliance, both what you call the schema and the vocabulary would be defined in the same place - an ontology. I have the feeling that in other technologies that would be the same: in XML schema the terms would be introduced and given a definition (and a role in the data structure) in an XSD file, wouldn't they?

Antoine

On 2/6/15 5:38 PM, Bernadette Farias Lóscio wrote:
> Hi Antoine,
>
> I'm sorry, it was my mistake: Person is part of the vocabulary.
>
> Person(name, age, sex, id) defines the schema of the relation, where Person is the name of the relation and (name, age and sex) are attributes of Person.
>
> person, name, age, sex, id are terms that compose the vocabulary.
>
> cheers,
> Bernadette
>
>
>
>
> 2015-02-06 11:40 GMT-03:00 Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl <mailto:aisaac@few.vu.nl>>:
>
>
>         - the structure of the data should be referred to as the data schema
>         - the collection of terms used in the schema to describe how to
>         interpret data values should be refered to as the vocabulary
>
>
>         Person(name, age, sex, id) --> this is the schema
>         terms name, age, sex and id --> this is the vocabulary
>
>
>
>     I am sorry but I don't understand the proposal! Is the definition 'Person' part of the schema but not in the vocabulary? The definition of 'name' is in the vocabulary and not in the schema?
>
>     Antoine
>
>
>     On 2/3/15 5:02 PM, Bernadette Farias Lóscio wrote:
>
>         Hi all,
>
>         I'd like to discuss with you the difference between vocabulary, data
>         schema, data model and data format. João Paulo started this discussion
>         earlier in this message:
>         https://lists.w3.org/Archives/__Public/public-dwbp-wg/2015Jan/__0195.html <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-dwbp-wg/2015Jan/0195.html>
>
>         It is worth to read the whole message to better understand the
>         definitions. In the following, I show just parts of the message with
>         some definitions:
>         -------------------------
>         - About data representation and data format
>
>         "By "data representation" we mean any convention for the arrangement of
>         symbols in such a way as to enable information to be encoded by a data
>         producer and later decoded by data consumers.
>
>         A particular convention for data representation is often referred to as a
>         "data format"."
>
>         ....
>
>         - About schemas
>
>         For example, an XML-based format can be
>         specified with a "schema document" in the XML Schema Definition language,
>         enabling XML documents to be checked for conformance to the format defined
>         in the schema document [XML-SCHEMA].
>
>         "schemas" are often used as a means to anchor natural language
>         descriptions to guide humans in the interpretation of data produced using
>         the format. Often, labels are used in these schemas to convey intuitive
>         meaning and guide interpretation, in which case these labels serve the role
>         of "terms" in communication. The collection of terms as used in the schema
>         is then referred to as a "vocabulary".
>
>         ------------------------------
>
>         The notion of schema presented above is similar to the one of
>         relational schema in the database world. A relational database schema
>         describes the set of relation schemas of a given database. A relation
>         schema is composed by the name of the relation together with its
>         attributes. This specifies how to interpret instances of a given
>         relation (or table). In the database world, a data model consists of a
>         set of constructs to build databases. For example, in the relational
>         model, databases are represented as a collection of relations (or
>         tables).
>
>         IMO vocabularies may be used to describe data schemas even when the
>         RDF model is not being used. Vocabularies should be used to help tasks
>         like data integration and to improve data interoperability.
>
>         In this case, I suggest:
>
>         - the structure of the data should be referred to as the data schema
>         - the collection of terms used in the schema to describe how to
>         interpret data values should be refered to as the vocabulary
>         - the abstract syntax to define schemas should be referred to as data model
>
>         Example  (relational schema defined according to the relational data model):
>
>         Person(name, age, sex, id) --> this is the schema
>         terms name, age, sex and id --> this is the vocabulary
>
>         cheers,
>         Bernadette
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>         2015-01-22 13:46 GMT-03:00 Data on the Web Best Practices Working
>         Group Issue Tracker <sysbot+tracker@w3.org <mailto:sysbot%2Btracker@w3.org>>:
>
>             dwbp-ISSUE-134 (BernadetteLoscio): About Formats, schemas, vocabularies and data models  [Best practices document(s)]
>
>             http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/__track/issues/134 <http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/track/issues/134>
>
>             Raised by: Joao Paulo Almeida
>             On product: Best practices document(s)
>
>             The group needs to settle on some concepts (and ultimately terms) that should help us to structure our discussions,  give us a basis to communicate and help our audience to understand us.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Bernadette Farias Lóscio
> Centro de Informática
> Universidade Federal de Pernambuco - UFPE, Brazil
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Received on Monday, 9 February 2015 21:35:05 UTC