[vocab-dcat-3] Misc. Comments

Dear DXWG,

We are in the process of adopting DCAT within AstraZeneca. Please see comments below, which describe some of our observations during this process. I'd be very grateful for any guidance you may have.

Kind regards,
Martin


  *   Relationship with Data Mesh concepts



AZ is in the process of adopting Data Mesh principles and defining "Data Products". This concept seems similar to the idea of a dcat:Distribution or a dcat:DataSetSeries, we would appreciate your opinion on how these concepts align.




  *   Data Sets not available via data services or downloadURLs

We wish to catalogue lumps of data in our estate which are not necessarily available via web APIs, e.g. RBBMS tables. DCAT doesn't appear to currently provide a vocabulary to describe where data is or how it is structured in these cases.



  *   Guidance on when multiple Distributions are considered to pertain to the same Dataset, and when they are different.

We are uncertain as to whether the assignment of multiple distributions to a single data set means simply that the descriptors which are assigned to the Dataset are also true of the Distributions, or that the implication is that the Distributions are asserted to contain exactly the same semantic content in every respect. The latter might be difficult to maintain in practice as it sounds like the outcome of a data quality measurement, which could be true or not true over time.



  *   Versioning

In version 3, we have noticed the introduction of the literal "dcat:version". In our case, datasets & dataset records are assembled by multiple parties / sources with various versioning schemes, nomenclature and standards. We see the need to discriminate these different schemes with an additional term such as "versionScheme".







Martin East
R&D Data & Analytics Metadata Lead
AstraZeneca
AZ IT | Science and Enabling Units IT
da Vinci Building, Melbourn Science Park, Cambridge Road, Melbourn, SG8 6HB
Mobile: +44 7951 589846
martin.east@astrazeneca.com<mailto:martin.east@astrazeneca.com>

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