Re: Terminology Question concerning Web Architecture and Linked Data

Chris--

I appreciate that we run into terminology conflicts all the time  
around here, but I'd seriously suggest you look for some alternative  
to "data item" for the concept in question.  An awful lot of people  
(particularly those involved with databases) are used to seeing "data  
item" refer to something like a property or attribute (like "name" or  
"age").  More specifically, they're used to seeing records as  
containing multiple data items (or their values).  From that point of  
view, the sentence "When you interpret the Web of Data as a set of  
interlinked databases, a data item would equal a record in a specific  
database." looks particularly strange.  As I say, I understand the  
inevitability of terminology conflicts, but ...?

Cheers!

--Frank

On Jul 25, 2007, at 10:12 AM, Chris Bizer wrote:

>
> Hi Tim,
>
>> I can't think of a term for "the information which you get about  
>> the thing identified by it  when you look up a URI" which works  
>> for me.
>
>> It has of course the term "Representation" which connects an  
>> Information Resource and the (metadata, bits) pair which you get  
>> back, which is different.
>
> As we did not want to repeat the definition all over the tutorial,  
> we ended up with a term called "data item".
>
> Within section 2.1 of the tutorial, we define the term as: "The  
> term data items refers to the description of a non-information  
> resource that a client obtains by dereferencing a specific URI that  
> identifies this non-information resource." (http://sites.wiwiss.fu- 
> berlin.de/suhl/bizer/pub/LinkedDataTutorial/#aliases)
>
> Note that the definition is a bit more specific than your sentence  
> above, as it is restricted to non-information resources and not  
> things in general (assuming that your term "thing" refers to non- 
> information resources as well as information resources).
>
> We were also struggling to find a good word that matches the  
> concept and have chosen "data item" in the end as it somehow  
> relates to the overall term "Linked Data" and as we hope that  
> people from the database community will understand the second  
> informal definition of the term: "When you interpret the Web of  
> Data as a set of interlinked databases, a data item would equal a  
> record in a specific database."
>
> Cheers
>
> Chris
>

Received on Wednesday, 25 July 2007 16:08:03 UTC