Comments on DCAT draft

I had promised to do a read of the DCAT draft, mainly to catch any areas
that weren't clear to me from a "new reader" point of view. Most of the
comments below are editorial, and thus possibly a matter of taste - use
or not, as desired.

I have two comments that might be substantive:

#1
DCAT Family of Documents
- I think that the profile-related documents are perhaps a family, but
the intention was that those not be specific to DCAT. Does DCAT fit the
definition of "family member" in this case?

#2
6.2 says:

"The definitions (including domain and range) of terms outside the DCAT
namespace are provided here only for convenience and MUST NOT be
considered normative. The authoritative definitions of these terms are
in the corresponding specifications:"

What about where statements define an equivalence or relationship
between a class or property in DCAT and one in another namespace, e.g.:

dcat:Catalog
owl:equivalentClass schema:DataCatalog ;

or in the case of statements in which both subject and object are
outside of DCAT:

dc:title
owl:equivalentProperty schema:name ;

Is the definition about "normativity" clear for the interpretation of
these types of examples?

## Editorial comments ## (my suggestions after the "-")

Introduction:
"It also makes it possible to have a decentralized approach to
publishing data catalogs and makes federated search for datasets across
catalogs in multiple sites possible using the same query mechanism and
structure. Aggregated DCAT metadata can serve as a manifest file as part
of the digital preservation process."
- It also makes possible a decentralized approach to data catalog
publication and facilitates federated search for datasets in catalogs
across sites using a single query mechanism and structure. Aggregated
DCAT metadata can serve as a manifest file for digital preservation.

3. Namespaces
However, it can be noted that DCAT...
- However, note that DCAT

DCAT itself defines a minimal set of classes and properties of its own.
- DCAT defines a minimal...

4. Conformance

A data catalog conforms to DCAT if:

    Access to data is organized into datasets, distributions, and
data-services.
    An RDF description of the catalog itself and its datasets,
distributions, and data-services is available
 
- Wasn't there discussion of datasets not in catalogs?
https://github.com/w3c/dxwg/issues/62 Is this still an open question? If
so, should it be noted here?

5. Vocabulary
dcat:Resource represents an item in a catalog.
- dcat:Resource represents a dataset or service in a catalog.
- dcat:Resource represents an entry in a catalog.

That's all - very impressive work. Thanks, everyone.

kc
-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
m: 1-510-435-8234 (Signal)
skype: kcoylenet/+1-510-984-3600

Received on Wednesday, 19 September 2018 14:23:23 UTC