Resolving DCAT/ADMS Versioning (was Re: Naive question on DCAT versioning)

Dear all,

There was an active discussion on 31st July this year prompted by a 
question Antoine raised with me. It was not actually resolved however 
and so I am trying to do that here. I've re-read through the thread and 
believe that no substantive changes are necessary, however, two 
editorial changes would be useful as follows.


In Section 4, Vocabulary Overview, the paragraph that begins "Notice 
that a dataset in DCAT is defined as... " should be appended with:

"DCAT does not have a prescribed concept of versioning. It is up to the 
implementer whether a modification creates a new dataset or is simply a 
more recently modified version of the same dataset. A versioning 
mechanism is defined for ADMS which is a profile of DCAT."

I think the definition and usage note for dcat:Dataset is correct as is, 
however, the usage note for dct:modified, which currently reads "The 
value of this property indicates a change to the actual dataset, not a 
change to the catalog record. An absent value may indicate that the 
dataset has never changed after its initial publication, or that the 
date of last modification is not known, or that the dataset is 
continuously updated."

should be appended with:

"The use of this term implies that a change has been made but that this 
is not sufficient to have created a new version of the dataset. New 
versions of a dataset should be identified and cataloged separately."

These changes, I hope, clarify that DCAT does not have a concept of 
versioning, that ADMS does, and that whether a modification does or does 
not create a new version is application-specific. The essential 
semantics, however, are unchanged.

Thoughts?

Phil.


On 31/07/2013 19:45, Ghislain Atemezing wrote:
> Dear Antoine,
>
> Sorry if I missed your point in my previous mail...
>> @Ghislain: I'm not sure I understand your point: "as far as it is reflected in the metadata, such as dct:modified" seems to hint that you're just updating an existing instance of dcat:Dataset. But my point is about when there is a *new resource* of dcat:Dataset, as explained above.
>> http://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat/#Class:_Dataset does not say anything about whether such treatment is allowed or discouraged in DCAT. And thus if ADMS is compliant with DCAT or not.
>
> Now that I read the entire thread with Makx, I understand better your point. And I agree there is nothing at the moment in DCAT to handle that issue properly.
> I wonder if this issue of versioning affects only DCAT. Maybe one solution could be to help the user by clarifying it somewhere in the spec; or maybe handling it like in the ORG vocabulary [1] by creation
> a dcat:DataSetEvent by linking to PROV-O vocabulary (e.g: with prov:wasDerivedFrom property).
>
>
> Cheers,
> Ghislain
>
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-org/#org:ChangeEvent
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/#wasDerivedFrom
>

-- 

Phil Archer
W3C eGovernment

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

Received on Tuesday, 29 October 2013 17:55:10 UTC