RE: Scope of this group's work

When I said scenarios I was referring to description of how some user (could be computer system or person) would use the schema.org described data in general or some attribute in particular.

Examples:

*         Library software (e.g. Ex Libris Alma) would use a vendor site to support real time decision to buy a book (i.e. from Amazon) and have delivered to  student as opposed to routing the user request to ILL. If multiple vendors support schema.org than this would be easier to support more vendors, comparison and buy based on Library rules (price, time to delivery, etc.).
Discussion of attributes is now around what is needed for the scenario to work.

*         Some smart phone travel app  want to direct its customers to history books (even better eBooks and eArticles) available to him in his library that describe his travel location (e.g. some place in China). Libraries supporting schema.org would enable the smart phone app to use library  resources and display rich information regarding the possibilities. I doubt that they would want to use MARC :).  This scenario  requires discussion of appropriate copy, what entails rich information for such a solution, etc.

*         Going back to the fictional persons discussion. What is the use case (besides just... nice to know and display somewhere)?

I am not saying that good descriptive data isn't important unless you know the scenario.
I am saying that knowing the scenario will improve the chances that the solution fits at least one use (scenario) and hopefully also guides the discussion to discussing scenarios that the group feels are more of a priority now.

Shlomo


From: Jodi Schneider [mailto:jodi.schneider@deri.org]
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 12:17 PM
To: Shlomo Sanders
Cc: kcoyle@kcoyle.net; public-schemabibex@w3.org
Subject: Re: Scope of this group's work

Hi Shlomo,

Are use cases of any help?

http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/wiki/Use_Cases

It would be great if you could add a scenario -- or suggest one that could be added....

-Jodi

On 15 Nov 2012, at 06:49, Shlomo Sanders wrote:


The scope page is missing scenarios.
If there are no real and prioritize scenarios then how we be sure if 100 mails concerning Mickey Mouse is where the time should be spent?

Search Engines and People that use Search Engines are 2 VERY different types of scenarios.
Search Engines sounds like we understand what the scenarios/objectives but I am not sure even that is true.

Shlomo

-----Original Message-----
From: Karen Coyle [mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net]<mailto:[mailto:kcoyle@kcoyle.net]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 1:41 PM
To: public-schemabibex@w3.org<mailto:public-schemabibex@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Scope of this group's work



On 11/14/12 2:22 AM, Adrian Pohl wrote:

As already mentioned in the last mail, here are some questions I am
interested in regarding a definition of the scope of this group's
work. Most of these questions have already been posed but I think it
is important to specify an answer and define the scope a clear as
possible on the wiki.

- Is this group only about creating a schema.org<http://schema.org> extension for
bibliographic data in a narrower sense, i.e.: descriptions of
bibliographic resources plus person data/authority data in general?

Adrian,

As a starting point for discussion, I would separate bibliographic resources and authority data into two different options. There are a number of efforts (ISNI, ORCID) to identify named agents, of which library authority files are one. These are separate data sources from what we usually think of as "bibliographic data," and in current data not always linked in an actionable way. Similarly, subject authority files are another separate (but potentially linkable) source of data that provide additional information (broader, narrower, related) that is not carried in the bibliographic record itself. (We need to remember that schema.org<http://schema.org> is mark-up for web pages -- and ask: what information is on the page?)

This is why I feel uneasy about including things like "pseudonym" or "fictional person" in our work, because that information generally resides in the authority data but is not be present in the bibliographic data, and not displayed on the bibliographic display web page (today).
By discussing these distinctions as part of bibliographic data I think that we are mixing bibliographic and authority data as if they are one and the same, which they are not. It DOES make sense to develop schema.org<http://schema.org> properties for authority data, but our discussion will be less confusing if we talk about bibliographic and authority data separately (IMO).



Or is this group's work also about providing information about
holdings, offers, availability, price, services, sites etc.? As access
in general was already discussed here and seen as a desirable use
case, the group probably at least has also to cover the services
resources are provided by, their access restrictions, locatio &
opening hours (if applicable) etc.

This reflects my question about whether we are talking about bibliographic data in general (which would include citations, bibliographies, etc.) or specifically LIBRARY bibliographic data. If we are focused on library bibliography data then we need to think about how we anticipate that data will be used by search engines (which is your next question). WHY do we want to surface library data (or bibliographic data in general) to search engines?


- Another important question

regarding scope was already discussed on this list: Which data
providers do we have in mind to use this extension? Do we focus on
library data or do we want to propose a standard that's useful  for
most of the agents that provide bibliographic information on the web
(authors, publishers, booksellers, libraries, social cataloging
websites, universities etc.)? Although there already seems to be
consensus that the extension should not only cover libraries as
publishers,  I see that most group members[1] are somehow linked to
the library world. Shouldn't we invite more representatives of the
different publishers of bibliographic data on the web, then? Have more
people from other organizations already been invited?

My understanding is that schema.org<http://schema.org> grows unevenly based on who shows up to request extensions. If you look at the current state of schema.org<http://schema.org> it is very detailed in some areas, and not at all detailed in others. There is also some fairly uncontrolled overlap between interested parties.
This is quite different to how we tend to develop standards in the library world.

Between the descriptions for schema.org/Book<http://schema.org/Book> and the data in the product category, I believe that booksellers have already expressed their needs.
(I don't see a way to track who suggested what sets of properties for the original set, unfortunately.) The schema.org<http://schema.org> wiki [1] shows efforts underway.  We are not listed on the proposals page [2] yet, but note that there are proposals for scholarly article and for comic books, both of which have considerable overlap with general bibliographic concepts.

All this to say that my impression is that schema.org<http://schema.org> development takes place by and for particular communities (booksellers, car sales agents, medical services) rather than being organized around "things." Its focus is on the surfacing of particular services and offers on the web, not describing the world. (This is my interpretation, of course.) The medical area [3] is an interesting example that might be closer to libraries than the product-oriented ones. It appears to reflect the kinds of medical information that exists today in web pages.

We COULD define our target as library web pages, and/or as library catalog web displays. It makes sense to me to model our work around web pages rather than data in databases. I also think we should consider the display of library catalog data separately from library "web pages" -- those pages that have information about the library. I'm not saying that we shouldn't also consider that data, but, like in the medical example, it may be a different set of elements.

kc

[1] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas
[2] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgProposals
[3] http://schema.org/docs/meddocs.html


>From the foregoing discussion it sounded much like...
a) the intended schema.org<http://schema.org> extension should be useful by for diverse
individuals and organizations publishing bibliographic data on the
web. b) the term "bibliographic data" is interpreted quite broadly as
it not only covers descriptions of bibliographic resources, of authors
etc. but also information about where and how an item can be obtained
(lend, bought, streamed etc.)  and by whom.

I already made a first start defining the scope on the "Scope" page
[2]. As said, we should also think about what people to invite to this
group that are not from the library world.

Adrian

[1] http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/participants

[2] http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/wiki/Scope.




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Karen Coyle
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