Re: ADMS spec document update

Hi Phil,
Can you confirm whether Dave's points have been added to issue tracker? I'm trying to get all work that can be done for Tuesday W3 cycle handled today.  Thanks.

Cheers,

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

On Oct 19, 2012, at 6:06 AM, Dave Reynolds wrote:

> Hi Phil,
> 
> On 18/10/12 17:33, Phil Archer wrote:
>> Thanks very much to Dave, James, Jindřich and Stasinos for looking at
>> ADMS last week.
> 
> Summary:  I'm happy that you've addressed my points enough to go to FPWD. Though maybe some of them should be recorded as formal issues to be worked on further.
> 
> Details interspersed below ...
> 
>> 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."
> 
> OK. That explains the relationship.
> 
> I have to say I'm surprised (to put it mildly!) that something for describing "semantic assets" from a semantic web working group is intended primarily for describing human readable documents rather than machine processable semantic objects. Seems a bit ironic somehow.
> 
> That is certainly not a barrier to FPWD. Will be an issue that the whole WG will need to comfortable with before going to LC though.
> 
>> (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.
> 
> Fine.
> 
> [BTW I noticed a couple of typos in there - adms:SematicAsset and adms:SematicAssetRepository]
> 
>> (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?
> 
> I meant something different. I'll post a different message on that so as to not complicate this thread. Not a barrier to FPWD.
> 
>> (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."
> 
> Fine.
> 
>> (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.
> 
> See [1], I think my underlying question is about what "Representation Technique" is intended to cover.
> 
> Dave
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-gld-wg/2012Oct/0085.html
> 
>