[VM,ALL] VM Task Force description revised after telecon

Dear all,

This version cuts the TF description per se down to one page
-- much shorter than the previous draft [1].  I have also cut
the "Dependencies" section down to a list of W3C documents
of relevance to the chosen scope.  I would appreciate some
guidance and feedback from W3C process veterans, as well as
from working group members, on whether this document can be
considered "done" as a TG description.

My vacation starts soon, and August is a bad month to try to
work as a group, so I propose we plan to start moving again
late in August.  I will take the older draft as a starting
point and integrate any comments or references such as Jeremy's
or any others that may come in over the next few weeks.

For those listed as "members" who have not yet confirmed,
please let me know at your convenience.

Tom

[1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swbp-wg/2004Jun/0113.html

------

SWBPD "Vocabulary Management" Task Force Description
Draft, 2004-06-25

NAME          
    Vocabulary Management

STATUS        
    Considered

COORDINATORS  
    Tom Baker (Fraunhofer Society)

MEMBERS
    Libby Miller (University of Bristol)
    Natasha Noy (Stanford University)
    Dan Brickley (W3C)
    Alistair Miles (CCL)
    Alan Rector (University of Manchester)
    James Hendler (University of Maryland)
    Aldo Gangemi (CNR)
    Bernard Vatant (Mondeca)
    Ralph Swick (W3C)

OBJECTIVES

1. To establish the terminology for our discussion of the
   declaration, identification, use, and management of
   vocabulary terms in a Semantic Web environment -- i.e.,
   to list and define terms such as Term, Vocabulary,
   and Namespace.

2. To articulate assumptions regarding the use of terms in
   a Semantic Web environment.

   This section can be short, but our guidelines may not make
   sense to readers if we do not say something about our
   assumptions.  These assumptions could include: an open,
   loosely-coupled, mixed-language environment ("the Web");
   distributed and bottom-up processes for defining and
   publishing vocabularies; the need to support the evolution
   of languages; well-known Web principles such as the "Must
   Ignore Principle" and "The Principle of Free Extension";
   the need to support processes for repurposing and merging
   data from many sources; and visions of future Semantic
   Web infrastructures (e.g., "registries").

3. To articulate guidelines of good practice for Namespace
   Owners to identify and declare Terms and Term Sets
   (Vocabularies) for use in a Semantic Web environment.

   Starting with fundamental guidelines such as "Identify Terms
   using URIs", this section should formulate good-practice
   advice in areas where a workable consensus has developed on
   topics such as the backwards and forwards compatibility
   of URI-identified terms; the documentation of terms;
   "namespace" policies; "ownership" of namespaces; and
   approaches to versioning terms and identifying term
   versions.

4. To point to and briefly summarize ongoing the evolving
   diversity of practices and approaches to declaring and
   managing vocabularies.

   Any issues on which a workable consensus has not yet been
   reached on good practice in the wider Web community should
   be discussed in such a way as to clarify the range of
   different approaches.  Examples are the question of what
   sort of human-readable or machine-processable documents, if
   any, Term URIs should "resolve to"; how an organization or
   even an individual can go about declaring and publishing a
   term or a vocabulary; and how "good" URIs should be formed.

APPROACH
    The issues above have been discussed and documented in
    various vocabulary maintenance communities.  The Task
    Force deliverable will provide an overview of the issues
    and principles involved in declaring and maintaining
    a vocabulary, pointing to available examples of good
    practice.  In order to do this, it must first define
    a common terminology for describing the diversity of
    practices in a comparable manner.

SCOPE
    Guidelines and principles for the identification,
    declaration, and management of Terms in Vocabularies
    (Metadata Element Sets, Thesauri, Ontologies, Published
    Subjects, and the like).

DELIVERABLE
    A relatively concise (fifteen-page?) technical note
    summarizing principles of good practice, with pointers to
    examples, about the identification of terms and term sets
    with URIs, related policies and etiquette, and expectations
    regarding documentation.

TARGET AUDIENCE
    -- Maintainers of terms and term sets (vocabularies)
       for use in a Semantic Web environment.
    -- Anyone else wishing to declare terms reusably.

DEPENDENCIES

    -- SWBP Thesaurus Task Force (THES)
       http://www.w3.org/2004/03/thes-tf/mission
    -- Proposed TAG Finding on Versioning XML Languages
       http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/versioning/
    -- W3C TAG on "What should a 'namespace document' look like?
       http://www.w3.org/2003/09/15-tag-summary.html
    -- SWAD-E Thesaurus
       http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-esw-thes/2004Apr/
    -- RDF Core
       http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/meetings/tech-200303/social-meaning



-- 
Dr. Thomas Baker                        Thomas.Baker@izb.fraunhofer.de
Institutszentrum Schloss Birlinghoven         mobile +49-160-9664-2129
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft                          work +49-30-8109-9027
53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany                    fax +49-2241-144-2352
Personal email: thbaker79@alumni.amherst.edu

Received on Friday, 25 June 2004 12:41:23 UTC