NEW DRAFT: Model Versions

Dear all,
The issue of the effectiveness of the oa:modelVersion approach has been
raised in recent emails. In fact, the property is currently functional and
we are dealing with two different namespaces (oa and oax).

It has been recommended not to change the namespace for different versions,
therefore we need an alternative way of describing the version of the
ontologies that have been used for the serialization. Using the date to
determine which specs have been used might not always work as some
applications might be capable to serialize/consume several model versions
at the same time. We cannot rely on the applications to determine, without
any help, which version of the model has been used, and losing all of the
previously-produced annotations is not acceptable when we update the data
model.  Thus we feel that it is important to have a working solution for
this issue, even though it also applies to many other domains.  Should a
commonly accepted solution arise in the future, we would adopt it at that
point.

As additional ontologies can be used to shape the annotation scaffolding,
we propose to allow zero or more oa:modelVersion relationships so that all
the core ontologies could be explicitly listed when necessary.

A more suitable name should be found. Suggestions so far include:
oa:serializedWithVersion
oa:serializedWith
oa:serializedUsing
oa:usesVersion
oa:usesOntology

Please feel free to suggest others.

Best,
Paolo & Rob

-- 
Dr. Paolo Ciccarese
http://www.paolociccarese.info/
Biomedical Informatics Research & Development
Instructor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School
Assistant in Neuroscience at Mass General Hospital
+1-857-366-1524 (mobile)   +1-617-768-8744 (office)

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This message is intended only for the addressee(s),
may contain information that is considered
to be sensitive or confidential and may not be forwarded or disclosed to
any other party without the permission of the sender.
If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender
immediately.