Guidelines for the Connection Task Force Report

Hi all,

on yesterdays Connection TF teleconference, Eric and I developed some 
ideas for the informal report of our task force. I summarize them here, 
for one to document it and for reference, for two to ask you for 
feedback if you think that this makes sense.

Purpose of the report: The report is meant to be a useful collection of 
links to and descriptions of other groups, initiatives, data models, 
vocabularies, etc. that can be helpful to understand the context of the 
Provenance WG, as well as a means to identify potential conflicts or 
promising fields for collaboration.

Form of the report: To reduce the barriers for groups and people outside 
our task force who want to contribute, we have no formal requirement for 
the description of a group. The simplest form would be a link to a 
webpage along with a short summary. However, the template from the 
template catalog [1] or the five points [2] in the informal report still 
can be used, if someone considers them useful.

We encourage people to write a free form text about the connection 
including interesting background knowledge and hints for possible 
interactions between the groups. While this might be less structured, we 
think that structure would only be useful, if we had a very specific 
collection of information to be gathered in mind (we don't have) and if 
we could unify the descriptions of the connections (we can't, as they 
are very different in nature). Free text is easier to read and 
understand for people new to the topic and the descriptions of the 
connections can especially be helpful for people who have an 
understanding of one or more of these connections and want to 
understand, how the Provenance WG relates to them.

Organization of the work: As the resources of our task force are very 
limited, we have to be careful that we use them wisely. It will not be 
possible to write comprehensive texts for all possible connections of 
the Provenance WG. Therefore, we introduce several levels of detail:

1-star *: We have a link to a connection together with a very short 
summary (maybe only one sentence). This is the basis of the report and 
we try to collect as much as possible, include contributions by others 
and ask for missing links before the report is finished.

2-star **: We extend the description to the best of our knowledge and 
identify interesting links between a connection and our WG. We will do 
this for some of the connections, prioritized by importance for the WG 
and personal interests.

3-star ***: We contact the connection and get our description extended, 
reworked and especially approved by a representative of the connection. 
We hope that this will be accomplished by contacting single persons or a 
call for contributions via mailing lists.

4-star ****: We find and name a person for the connection that writes 
and/or approves the description of the connection and is willing to 
function as a bridge between the WG and the connection to make sure that 
conflicts are addressed and to foster communication and collaboration 
between the groups. We would like to have these bridge persons 
especially for other W3C groups.

That's it, a first example of such a textual description can already be 
seen in the informal report [3], the DCMI Metadata Provenance Task Group.

Feedback and comments are very welcome!

Cheers,

Kai


[1] http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/Connections_Template_Catalog
[2] 1. Domain Use Cases, 2. Provenance Requirements, 3. Current 
Community Approaches, 4. Outstanding Needs, 5. Connectivity Opportunities
[3] http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/Connection_Task_Force_Informal_Report
-- 
Kai Eckert
Universitätsbibliothek Mannheim
Stellv. Leiter Abteilung Digitale Bibliotheksdienste
Schloss Schneckhof West / 68131 Mannheim
Tel. 0621/181-2946  Fax 0621/181-2918

Received on Tuesday, 23 August 2011 07:32:15 UTC