Last Call for DSpace History System Descriptive Note

All -
 
I would like to propose that the DSpace History System Descriptive Note
[1] move to Last Call.  I would like to collect final comments during
the SIMILE PI call this Friday, May 23.  I will also work with Mick Bass
to distribute an initial draft of the second document in the series, a
design document that will describe the RDF model that will be
implemented to address the issues identified in the descriptive note.
This document will be made available at the PI call with the goal being
to set up a review call prior to the PI call of May 30.  Anyone who is
interested in participating in the RDF model design discussion should
contact me directly.
 
Of the outstanding issues in the note, the most critical is that of
naming and resolution.  I would like to propose that we move forward in
the history system with CNRI Handles as identifiers.  Using CNRI Handles
for all identified resources allows resolution to be approached later
and to provide late binding for the contents of the resource, if they
are available.  As John Erickson pointed out, using the Handle system
could also provide a mechanism to retrieve the metadata (in addition to
any content that may also be available) for a given Handle.  Although
there may be advantages to using particular identifier generation
schemes, such as MD5 or SHA for Bitstream objects, the Handle System
provides a general-purpose identification scheme that can also be used
for resolution, if needed later.  A separate issue is whether the
Handles used to track states or revisions should have a common base,
such as that Handle for the resource.  Because this technique would
likely not improve search performance in an RDQL query, I'm inclined to
defer this as an implementation-time decision.
 
I'm looking forward to everyone's comments.
 
[1]
<http://web.mit.edu/simile/www/documents/historySystem/descriptiveNote/d
escriptiveNote.pdf>
http://web.mit.edu/simile/www/documents/historySystem/descriptiveNote/de
scriptiveNote.pdf
 
Regards,
 
Jason Kinner
Dynamic Digital Media, LLC
jason_kinner@dynamicdigitalmedia.com
856.296.5711 (mobile)
215.243.7377 (phone)
http://www.dynamicdigitalmedia.com <http://www.dynamicdigitalmedia.com/>