Re: Proposal for Schema.org extension mechanism

This is a very welcome proposal.

As editor of the BiblioGraph.net<http://bibliograph.net> extension vocabulary, mentioned, I can report that this proposed approach works well and is already in use in linked data published by OCLC services and sites such as WorldCat.org<http://worldcat.org>.

Some of the details need to be worked through, for example the need to declare bib.schema.org<http://bib.schema.org> and schema.org<http://schema.org> prefixes [or not], and what would be the impact of using more than one extension vocabulary in some complex markup.

Also I am sure that the members of the Schema Bib Extend group would want to comment on this.

I believe this will enable the broad extension of schema.org<http://schema.org> to satisfy many needs of individual sectors without loosing the essential generic cross sector nature of schema itself.

~Richard

On 13 Feb 2015, at 21:34, Guha <guha@google.com<mailto:guha@google.com>> wrote:


Schema.org<http://Schema.org> extension mechanism


Motivation
   As schema.org<http://schema.org/> adoption has grown, a number groups with more specialized vocabularies have expressed interest in extending schema.org<http://schema.org/> with their terms. The most prominent example of this is GS1 with product vocabularies. Other examples include real estate, medical and bibliographic information. Even in something as common as human names, there are groups interested creating the vocabulary for representing all the intricacies of names.

Outline of solution

There are two kinds of extensions: reviewed extensions and external extensions. Both kinds of extensions typically add subclasses and properties to the core. Properties may be added to existing and/or new classes. More generally, they are an overlay on top of the core, and so they may add domains/ranges, superclasses, etc. as well. Extensions have to be consistent with the core schema.org<http://schema.org/>. Every item in the core (i.e., www.schema.org<http://www.schema.org/>) is also in every extension. Extensions might overlap with each other in concepts (e.g., two extensions defining terms for financial institutions, one calling it FinancialBank and other calling it FinancialInstitution), but we should not have the same term being reused to mean something completely different (e.g., we should not have two extensions, one using Bank to mean river bank and the other using Bank to mean financial institution).

Reviewed Extensions
Each reviewed extension (say, e1), gets its own chunk of schema.org<http://schema.org/> namespace: e1.schema.org<http://e1.schema.org/>. The items in that extension are created and maintained by the creators of that extension.  Reviewed extensions are very different from proposals. A proposal, if accepted, with modifications could either go into the core or become a reviewed extension.

A reviewed extension is something that has been looked at and discussed by the community, albeit not as much as something in the core. We also expect a reviewed extension to have strong community support, preferably in the form of a few deployments.

External Extensions
Sometimes there might be a need for a third party (such as an app developer) to create extensions specific to their application. For example, Pinterest might want to extend the schema.org<http://schema.org/> concept of ‘Sharing’ with ‘Pinning’. In such a case, they can create schema.pinterest.com<http://schema.pinterest.com/> and put up their extensions, specifying how it links with core schema.org<http://schema.org/>. We will refer to these as external extensions.



How it works for webmasters
All of Schema.org<http://Schema.org> core and all of the reviewed extensions will be available from the schema.org<http://schema.org/> website. Each extension will be linked to from each of the touch points it has with the core. So, if an extension (say, having to do with Legal stuff) creates legal.schema.org/LegalPerson<http://legal.schema.org/LegalPerson> which is a subclass of schema.org/Person<http://schema.org/Person>, the Person will link to LegalPerson.  Typically, a webpage / email will use only a single extension (e.g., legal), in which case, instead of ‘schema.org<http://schema.org/>’ they say ‘legal.schema.org<http://legal.schema.org/>’ and use all of the vocabulary in legal.schema.org<http://legal.schema.org/> and schema.org<http://schema.org/>.

As appropriate, the main schema.org<http://schema.org/> site will also link to relevant external extensions. With external extensions, the use of multiple namespaces is unavoidable.

What does someone creating an extension need to do
 We would like extension creators to not have to worry about running a website for their extension. Once the extension is approved, they simply upload a file with their extension into a certain directory on github. Changes are made through the same mechanism.

Since the source code for schema.org<http://schema.org/> is publicly available, we encourage creators of external extensions to use the same application.

Examples

Archives example in RDFa

This example uses a type that makes sense for archival and bibliographic applications but which is not currently in the schema.org<http://schema.org/> core: Microform, defined as "Any form, either film or paper, containing microreproductions of documents for transmission, storage, reading, and printing. (Microfilm, microfiche, microcards, etc.)"

The extension type is taken from  http://bibliograph.net/Microform, (which on this proposed model would move to bib.schema.org<http://bib.schema.org/>) which is a version of the opensource schema.org<http://schema.org/> codebases that overlays bibliographic extras onto the core schema.org<http://schema.org/> types. The example is adapted from http://schema.org/workExample.


<div vocab="http://bib.schema.org/">
   <p typeof="Book" resource="http://www.freebase.com/m/0h35m">
       <em property="name">The Fellowship of the Rings</em> was written by
       <span property="author">J.R.R Tolkien</span> and was originally published
       in the <span property="publisher" typeof="Organization">
           <span property="location">United Kingdom</span> by
           <span property="name">George Allen & Unwin</span>
       </span> in <time property="datePublished">1954</time>.
       The book has been republished many times, including editions by
       <span property="workExample" typeof="Book">
           <span property="publisher" typeof="Organization">
               <span property="name">HarperCollins</span>
           </span> in <time property="datePublished">1974</time>
           (ISBN: <span property="isbn">0007149212</span>)
       </span> and by
       <span property="workExample" typeof="Book Microform">
           <span property="publisher" typeof="Organization">
               <span property="name">Microfiche Press</span>
           </span> in <time property="datePublished">2016</time>
           (ISBN: <span property="isbn">12341234</span>).
       </span>
   </p>
</div>

Alternative RDFa:

The example above puts all data into the extension namespace. Although this can be mapped back into normal schema.org<http://schema.org/> it puts more work onto consumers. Here is how it would look using multiple vocabularies:

<div vocab="http://schema.org/" prefix="bib: http://bib.schema.org/">
   <p typeof="Book" resource="http://www.freebase.com/m/0h35m">
       <em property="name">The Fellowship of the Rings</em> was written by
       <span property="author">J.R.R Tolkien</span> and was originally published
       in the <span property="publisher" typeof="Organization">
           <span property="location">United Kingdom</span> by
           <span property="name">George Allen & Unwin</span>
       </span> in <time property="datePublished">1954</time>.
       The book has been republished many times, including editions by
       <span property="workExample" typeof="Book">
           <span property="publisher" typeof="Organization">
               <span property="name">HarperCollins</span>
           </span> in <time property="datePublished">1974</time>
           (ISBN: <span property="isbn">0007149212</span>)
       </span> and by
       <span property="workExample" typeof="Book bib:Microform">
           <span property="publisher" typeof="Organization">
               <span property="name">Microfiche Press</span>
           </span> in <time property="datePublished">2016</time>
           (ISBN: <span property="isbn">12341234</span>).
       </span>
   </p>
</div>

Here is that last approach written in JSON-LD (it works today, but would be even more concise if the schema.org<http://schema.org/> JSON-LD context file was updated to declare the 'bib' extension):

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
 "@context": [ "http://schema.org/",
      { "bib": "http://bib.schema.org/" } ],
 "@id": "http://www.freebase.com/m/0h35m",
 "@type": "Book",
 "name": "The Fellowship of the Rings",
 "author": "J.R.R Tolkien",
 "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
 },
 "location": "United Kingdom",
 "name": "George Allen & Unwin",
},
 "datePublished": "1954",
 "workExample": {
   "@type": "Book",
   "name": "Harper Collins",
   "datePublished": "1974",
   "isbn": "0007149212"
 },
 "workExample": {
   "@type": ["Book", "bib:Microform"],
   "name": "Microfiche Press",
   "datePublished": "2016",
   "isbn": "12341234"
 }
}
</script>


GS1 Example

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
   "@context": "http://schema.org/",
   "@vocab": "http://gs1.schema.org/",
   "@id": "http://id.manufacturer.com/gtin/05011476100885",
   "gtin13": "5011476100885",
   "@type": "TradeItem",
   "tradeItemDescription": "Deliciously crunchy Os, packed with 4 whole grains. Say Yes to Cheerios",
   "healthClaimDescription": "8 Vitamins & Iron, Source of Calcium & High in Fibre",
   "hasAllergenRelatedInformation": {
       "@type": "gs1:AllergenRelatedInformation",
       "allergenStatement": "May contain nut traces"
   },
   "hasIngredients": {
       "@type": "gs1:FoodAndBeverageIngredient",
       "hasIngredientDetail": [
           {
               "@type": "Ingredient",
               "ingredientseq": "1",
               "ingredientname": "Cereal Grains",
               "ingredientpercentage": "77.5"
           },
           {
               "@type": "Ingredient",
               "ingredientseq": "2",
               "ingredientname": "Whole Grain OATS",
               "ingredientpercentage": "38.0"
           }
     ]
   },
   "nutrientBasisQuantity": {
       "@type": "Measurement",
       "value": "100",
       "unit": "GRM"
   },
   "energyPerNutrientBasis": [
       {
           "@type": "Measurement",
           "value": "1615",
           "unit": "KJO"
       },
       {
           "@type": "Measurement",
           "value": "382",
           "unit": "E14"
       }
   ],
   "proteinPerNutrientBasis": {
       "@type": "Measurement",
       "value": "8.6",
       "unit": "GRM"
   }
}

</script>

This example shows a possible encoding of the GS1 schemas overlaid onto schema.org<http://schema.org/>. It uses JSON-LD syntax, which would support several variations on this approach. It is based on examples from GS1's proposal circulated to the schema.org<http://schema.org/> community recently.
(https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2015Jan/0069.html). Instead of writing
   "@context": "http://schema.org/",   "@vocab": "http://gs1.schema.org/", it would be possible to simply write "@context": "http://gs1.schema.org/".