Transition Request: DCAT Vocabulary as FPWD

The Government Linked Data (GLD) WG requests transition of the Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) as a FPWD. DCAT emerged from the W3C eGov Interest Group and W3C Government Linked Data (GLD) Working Group.

Draft is at:
http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/gld/raw-file/default/dcat/index.html

Publication Date: 09-February-2012

short name: http://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat

Decision to request the transition:

http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/meeting/2012-03-08

Status:

This is the First Call Working Draft of the Data Catalog (DCAT) Vocabulary specification. 

The DCAT Vocabulary is deemed to be a core vocabulary for governments creating and publishing Linked Open Data on the Web.  DCAT is an RDF vocabulary well-suited to representing government data catalogs such as Data.gov and data.gov.uk

Abstract:

DCAT is an RDF vocabulary designed to facilitate interoperability between data catalog published on the Web.  DCAT may be used for any entity publishing catalog of datasets.  

This document defines the RDF schema for DCAT and provides examples for its use.  DCAT was conceived with the following benefits in mind:
Embedded metadata in catalog web pages increases data "findability," enables decentralised publishing of catalogs, and facilitates federated dataset search across sites
A uniform catalog vocabulary provides a basis for one-click download and installation of data packages Aggregated DCAT metadata can serve as a manifest file to facilitate digital preservation
A uniform metadata model enables applications to be built once and work with multiple catalog
Not a delta specification.

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Bernadette Hyland, co-chair 
W3C Government Linked Data Working Group
Charter: http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/