SemTech, RDFa, Microdata and more...

 SemTech, RDFa, Microdata and more...
 Schema.org was launched a year ago. This week several of the
schema.orgteam returned to the SemTechBiz
conference <http://semtechbizsf2012.semanticweb.com/> for a
panel<http://semtechbizsf2012.semanticweb.com/sessionPop.cfm?confid=65&proposalid=4799>to
discuss where we are, and where we're going.

Schema.org is all about shared vocabulary, rather than any specific markup
encoding. As we
reported<http://blog.schema.org/2011/11/using-rdfa-11-lite-with-schemaorg.html>last
year, the RDFa Working Group have been working hard to address
feedback from schema.org and others. Yesterday's panel gave us the chance
to be the first to welcome W3C's
announcement<http://www.w3.org/News/2012#entry-9470>that RDFa 1.1 is
now a full W3C recommendation. This new standard, in
particular the RDFa Lite
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/REC-rdfa-lite-20120607/>specification,
brings together the simplicity of Microdata with improved
support for using multiple schemas together.

What does this mean for schema.org? We want to say clearly that we continue
to support Microdata, and in particular those who have championed the
adoption of Microdata over the last year. Billions of pages now use
schema.org markup thanks to these early adopters, and Microdata continues
to be a fine way to publish and share structured data. Our approach is
"Microdata and more". As implementations and services begin to consume RDFa
1.1, publishers with an interest in mixing schema.org with additional
vocabularies, or who are using tools like Drupal
7<http://drupal.org/node/574624>,
may find RDFa well worth exploring.

Beyond Microdata and RDFa in HTML, the SemTechBiz conference covered
numerous other ways of sharing schema.org structured data. Examples
included JSON-LD <http://www.slideshare.net/gkellogg1/json-for-linked-data>,
the use of schema.org with DocBook
XML<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook>(via RDFa), and W3C's
relational
database mapping <http://www.w3.org/TR/r2rml/> technology.

We are also pleased to announce today a discussion paper on the use of
OData<http://www.odata.org/>and Schema.org, posted in
the Web Schemas wiki <http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgOData>.
OData defines a RESTful interface for working with data on the Web. The
newest version of OData allows service developers and third parties to
annotate data or metadata exposed by an OData Service. Defining common
OData Vocabulary encodings of the schema.org schemas facilitates the
understanding and even transformation of data across these different
encodings.

But what of the schema itself? The largest change so far was the integration
of the IPTC/rNews
vocabulary<http://blog.schema.org/2011/09/extended-schemaorg-news-support.html>.
Building on this model, we have been encouraging public collaboration,
discussion and debate on schemas via the W3C Web Schemas
community<http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas>.
Aside from numerous small improvements and fixes, including the addition of
a Comment <http://schema.org/Comment> type, and a more detailed schema for
SoftwareApplication <http://schema.org/SoftwareApplication>, we have been
preparing for a '1.0' release later this month. We maintain a public list
of proposals <http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgProposals>under
community discussion, and will typically incorporate vocabulary when
we see a combination of interest from major publishers and consumers
alongside rough consensus on the schema design.

The schema.org 1.0 vocabulary is expected to include substantial additions
including support for genealogy (via historical-data.org), e-commerce
(through collaboration with Good
Relations<http://www.heppnetz.de/projects/goodrelations/>),
Learning / Education (with LRMI <http://www.lrmi.net/about>), a
Medical/health vocabulary, additions for describing technical/code and API
documentation, and for improved modeling of TV/Radio content. Discussion is
also underway around Sports, Forums, and numerous other topics. For each of
these, the W3C Wiki is the best place to start, and to contribute.
Sometimes proposers or community members will use other mailing lists,
Github or elsewhere, but the Wiki <http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas>
and mailing
list <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/> are the main
focus of shared discussions.

You can read full details of each
work-in-progress<http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgProposals>,
or follow this blog for news of new vocabulary. While we will continue to
extend schema.org throughout the year (e.g. we expect IPTC will complete
rNews 1.1 around October) we are also well aware that we can't cover
everything. SemTech gave us the chance to discuss collaboration with the
Wikidata <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata> project; this should
allow schema.org descriptions to draw upon the vast content of Wikipedia.
This combination<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikidata/Notes/Schema.org_and_Wikidata>of
the growing
schema.org vocabulary with 'external
enumerations<http://blog.schema.org/2012/05/schemaorg-markup-for-external-lists.html>'
from sites like Wikipedia, alongside new syntaxes such as RDFa Lite and
OData will keep us busy over the next year, and will create exciting
possibilities for search, structured data and the Web.

http://blog.schema.org/2012/06/semtech-rdfa-microdata-and-more.html