Re: When is it appropriate to use RDF Collections?

How would you make a statement that a group of people collectively  
authored a document (by committee, for instance)?

This is one possible use of RDF collections. Another is to express  
closed, ordered sequences (lists).

On the whole, though, they are unnecessary. Think of them as that odd  
tool that you occasionally use, rather than a hammer or screwdriver.

-R


On  9 Nov 2006, at 5:10 PM, Chris Richard wrote:

> >From the primer, demonstrating the use of RDF Collections:
>
>   <rdf:Description rdf:about="http://example.org/courses/6.001 ">
>      <s:students rdf:parseType="Collection">
>            <rdf:Description rdf:about=" http://example.org/students/ 
> Amy"/>
>            <rdf:Description
> rdf:about="http://example.org/students/Mohamed "/>
>            <rdf:Description
> rdf:about="http://example.org/students/Johann "/>
>      </s:students>
>   </rdf:Description>
>
> Why would I want to use this over:
>
>   <rdf:Description rdf:about=" http://example.org/courses/6.001">
>      <s:student rdf:resource="http://example.org/students/Amy "/>
>      <s:student rdf:resource="http://example.org/students/Mohamed"/>
>      <s:student rdf:resource="http://example.org/students/Johann"/>
>   </rdf:Description>
>
> I do understand the different graph that gets created in the two  
> different
> cases but this hasn't helped me.
>
> In the second case, if I want the list of students in the class I  
> can run a
> simple SPARQL query. I understand that using the collection allows  
> one to 'close' a list, but if I want to restrict other graphs from  
> making statements about the list of students, again I can use  
> SPARQL constructs (GRAPH keyword).
>
> Is there a clear semantic difference between the two  
> representations? Under
> what circumstances would I want to use one and not the other. How  
> do RDF
> Containers fit into this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chris