ADMS spec document update

Thanks very much to Dave, James, Jindřich and Stasinos for looking at 
ADMS last week.

I have uploaded a new version of the doc at [1] that attempts to address 
the issues raised. I'll work through the points Dave raised initially as 
most comments stemmed from that.

(1) My fundamental concern is that it is not clear what makes a Semantic 
Asset different from any other asset and so why it makes sense for GLD 
to publish ADMS as well as DCAT.

I have extended the introduction to address this. It now says:

"ADMS, the Asset Description Metadata Schema, is a vocabulary for 
describing so-called Semantic Assets, that is, things like standards, 
code lists and taxonomies. Although it has a lot in common with the Data 
Catalog vocabulary [DCAT], notably the extensive use of Dublin Core 
[DC11], someone searching for a Semantic Asset is likely to have 
different needs, priorities and expectations than someone searching for 
a data set and these differences are reflected in ADMS. In particular, 
users seeking a Semantic Asset are likely to be searching for 'a 
document' — something they can open and read using familiar desktop 
software, as opposed to something that needs to be processed. Of course 
this is a very broad generalization. If a code list is published as a 
SKOS Concept scheme then it is both a Semantic Asset and a dataset and 
it can be argued that all Semantic Assets are datasets. Therefore the 
difference in /user expectation/ is at the heart of what distinguishes 
ADMS from DCAT."

(2) The relationship between the listed classes/properties and actual 
expression as an RDFS/OWL vocabulary is not sufficiently clear.

Section 6 lists the classes and properties. For each one I have now 
indicated the RDF encoding, i.e. the relevant term. This means that in 
future we should also list the XML element name/attribute but that's for 
another day and a later discussion.

(3) The one thing that you do need with semantic assets, that you many 
not need elsewhere, is information on closure. You need to be able to 
state that some particular enumeration of codes in a codelist is 
complete and that a code not listed there is invalid. Is this use case 
supposed to be supported by ADMS?

I my view that's the job of an Application Profile. Away from GLD I've 
actually been working on a data validator for the EC's Joinup platform's 
application profile of ADMS. That does check that certain fields are 
present and filled, and that controlled vocabularies are used. I don't 
think enumerated lists and closure is relevant in the ADMS spec any more 
than it is in DCAT, or am I missing something?

(4) There's a lot of use of the term "file". This seems inappropriate in 
a W3C spec, especially one about semantic assets. Surely a common case 
will be things like code lists, represented in SKOS and made available 
as Linked Data.

The vocabulary overview now says:

"Like DCAT, ADMS has the concepts of a repository (catalog), assets 
within the repository that are often conceptual in nature, and then 
accessible realizations of those assets, known as distributions. An 
asset may have multiple distributions. As an example, a W3C namespace 
document can be considered to be a Semantic Asset that is available in 
multiple distributions, typically one or more machine processable 
versions and one in HTML for human consumption."

and the definition of a Semantic Asset Distribution now includes:

"A Distribution is typically a downloadable computer file (but in 
principle it could also be a paper document or API response) that 
implements the intellectual content of an Asset."

(5) This is a nitpick but it seems odd that translations are distinct 
SemanticAssets whereas representations are just distinct Distributions. 
If I represented a schema in RDFS instead of XSLT that's a much bigger 
change than if I translated it's labels to French.

I have some sympathy. I like conneg which is why I have a deep seated 
visceral hatred of accessURL. But, well, common practice seems against 
us. James seems happy that a translation is another asset although I'd 
think of it as an alternative distribution. I wasn't involved in the 
original data modelling so I'd have to ask why translations are 
different assets and not distributions.

I'll update the namespace document in the coming days too and they 
should both be in alignment early next week.

Again, thanks to everyone.

Phil.


[1] http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/gld/raw-file/default/adms/index.html
-- 


Phil Archer
W3C eGovernment
http://www.w3.org/egov/

http://philarcher.org
+44 (0)7887 767755
@philarcher1

Received on Thursday, 18 October 2012 16:33:40 UTC