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Expand Up @@ -65,12 +65,12 @@ <h2>Introduction</h2>

<p class="note">From DCAT 2014 [[!VOCAB-DCAT-20140116]]</p>

<p>Data can come in many formats, ranging from spreadsheets, through XML and RDF, to various speciality formats. DCAT does not make any assumptions about the serialisation format of the datasets described in a catalog. Other, complementary vocabularies <em title="MAY" class="rfc2119">MAY</em> be used together with DCAT to provide more detailed format-specific information. For example, properties from the VoID vocabulary [[VOID]] can be used to express various statistics about a DCAT-described dataset if that dataset is in RDF format.</p>
<p>Data can come in many formats, ranging from spreadsheets, through XML and RDF, to various specialty formats. DCAT does not make any assumptions about the serialization format of the datasets described in a catalog. Other, complementary vocabularies <em title="MAY" class="rfc2119">MAY</em> be used together with DCAT to provide more detailed format-specific information. For example, properties from the VoID vocabulary [[VOID]] can be used to express various statistics about a DCAT-described dataset if that dataset is in RDF format.</p>
<p>This document does not prescribe any particular method of deploying data expressed in DCAT. DCAT is applicable in many contexts including RDF accessible via SPARQL endpoints, embedded in HTML pages as RDFa, or serialized as e.g. RDF/XML or Turtle. The examples in this document use Turtle simply because of Turtle's readability.</p>
</section>

<section id="motivation" class="informative"><h2>Motivation for change</h2>
<p>The original Recommendation [[VOCAB-DCAT-20140116]], published in January 2014, provided the basic framework for describing datasets. Importantly, it made the distinction between a dataset as an abstract idea and a distribution as a manifestation of the dataset. Although DCAT has been widely adopted, it has became clear that the original specification lacked a number of essential features that were added either through application profiles, such as the European Commission's DCAT-AP [[DCAT-AP]], or the development of larger vocabularies that, to a greater or lesser extent, built upon the base standard, such as the Healthcare and Life Sciences Community Profile [[HCLS-Dataset]], the Data Tag Suite [[DATS]] and more. This version of DCAT has been developed to address the specific shortcomings that have come to light through the experiences of different communities, the aim being, of course, to improve interoperability between the outputs of these larger vocabularies.</p>
<p>The original Recommendation [[VOCAB-DCAT-20140116]], published in January 2014, provided the basic framework for describing datasets. Importantly, it made the distinction between a dataset as an abstract idea and a distribution as a manifestation of the dataset. Although DCAT has been widely adopted, it has become clear that the original specification lacked a number of essential features that were added either through application profiles, such as the European Commission's DCAT-AP [[DCAT-AP]], or the development of larger vocabularies that, to a greater or lesser extent, built upon the base standard, such as the Healthcare and Life Sciences Community Profile [[HCLS-Dataset]], the Data Tag Suite [[DATS]] and more. This version of DCAT has been developed to address the specific shortcomings that have come to light through the experiences of different communities, the aim being, of course, to improve interoperability between the outputs of these larger vocabularies.</p>
<p>This draft includes re-writing of the specification throughout. Significant changes from the 2014 Recommendation are marked within the text using "Note" sections, as well as being described in the <a href="#changes">Change History</a>.</p>

</section>
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -128,6 +128,9 @@ <h2 >Namespaces</h2>
<li> Controlled vocabularies or URI sets as acceptable values for properties</li>
<li> Requirements for specific access mechanisms (RDF syntaxes, protocols) to the catalog's RDF description</li>
</ul>
<p class="issue" data-number="430">
The requirement for a DCAT profile to conform to all of DCAT is under discussion.
</p>

</section>

Expand All @@ -140,13 +143,13 @@ <h2>Vocabulary overview</h2>
<p>DCAT is an RDF vocabulary well-suited to representing data catalogs such as <a href="https://www.data.gov/">data.gov</a> and <a href="https://data.gov.uk">data.gov.uk</a>. DCAT defines eight main classes:</p>
<ul>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Catalog">dcat:Catalog</a></code> represents the catalog</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Resource">dcat:Resource</a></code> represents an entry in a catalog.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Resource">dcat:Resource</a></code> represents an item described by an entry in a catalog.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Dataset">dcat:Dataset</a></code> represents a dataset in a catalog.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Distribution">dcat:Distribution</a></code> represents an accessible form or representation of a dataset as for example a downloadable file.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Data_Service">dcat:DataService</a></code> represents a data service in a catalog.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Data_Distribution_Service">dcat:DataDistributionService</a></code> represents a service that provides access to distributions of datasets and extracts of datasets.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Data_Service">dcat:DataService</a></code> represents a data service in a catalog. Example data services include data distribution services and data discovery services.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Data_Distribution_Service">dcat:DataDistributionService</a></code> represents a data service that provides access to distributions of datasets and extracts of datasets, such as an API.</li>
<!-- <li> (<code><a href="#Class:DataTransformationService">dcat:DataTransformationService</a></code> represents a service that can transform a dataset, e.g. spatial coordinate transformation; interpolation or resampling of a dataset).</li> -->
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Discovery_Service">dcat:DiscoveryService</a></code> represents a service that supports discovery functions.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Discovery_Service">dcat:DiscoveryService</a></code> represents a data service that supports discovery functions.</li>
<li> <code><a href="#Class:Catalog_Record">dcat:CatalogRecord</a></code> describes a dataset entry in the catalog, primarily concerning the registration information such as who added the item and when</li>
</ul>

Expand Down Expand Up @@ -188,7 +191,9 @@ <h2>Vocabulary overview</h2>

<p>A <b>CatalogRecord</b> describes an entry in the catalog. Notice that while <code>dcat:Resource</code> represents the dataset or service itself, <code>dcat:CatalogRecord</code> is the record that describes the registration of an item in the catalog. The use of <code>dcat:CatalogRecord</code> is considered optional. It is used to capture provenance information about entries in a catalog. If this distinction is not necessary then <code>dcat:CatalogRecord</code> can be safely ignored.</p>


<p class="issue" data-number="431">
There is ongoing discussion about whether a resource represents a dataset or a distribution.
</p>
<p id="blankNodes">RDF allows resources to have global identifiers (IRIs) or to be blank nodes. Blank nodes can be used to denote resources without explicitly naming them with an IRI. They can appear in the subject and object position of a triple [[RDF11-PRIMER]].
While blank nodes may offer flexibility for some use cases, in a Linked Data context, blank nodes limit our ability to collaboratively annotate data. A blank node resource cannot be the target of a link and it can't be annotated with new information from new sources. As one of the biggest benefits of the Linked Data approach is that "anyone can say anything anywhere", use of blank nodes undermines some of the advantages we can gain from wide adoption of the RDF model. Even within the closed world of a single application dataset, use of blank nodes can quickly become limiting when integrating new data [[LinkedDataPatterns]].
For these reasons, instances of the DCAT main classes <em title="SHOULD" class="rfc2119">SHOULD</em> have a global identifier, and use of blank nodes is generally discouraged when encoding DCAT in RDF.</p>
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -298,7 +303,7 @@ <h3>Classifying dataset types</h3>
The value of the property <em title="SHOULD" class="rfc2119">SHOULD</em> be taken from a well governed and broadly recognised set of resource types, such as the <a href="http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/#section-7">DCMI Type Vocabulary</a>, the <a href="https://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/marcgt.html">MARC Genre/Terms Scheme</a>, the <a href="https://schema.datacite.org/meta/kernel-4.1/include/datacite-resourceType-v4.1.xsd">DataCite resource types</a> or the PARSE.Insight content-types from Re3data [[RE3DATA-SCHEMA]].
</p>
<p>
In the following examples a (notional) dataset is classified separately using a values from different vocabularies.
In the following examples, a (notional) dataset is classified separately using values from different vocabularies.
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="nohighlight turtle" aria-busy="false" aria-live="polite">
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1542,7 +1547,7 @@ <h3>Class: Dataset</h3>
</p>

<p>
Information about licences and rights <em title="SHOULD" class="rfc2119">SHOULD</em> be provided on the level of Distribution. Information about licences and rights MAY be provided for a Dataset in addition to but not in stead of the information provided for the Distributions of that Dataset. Providing licence or rights information for a Dataset that is different from information provided for a Distribution of that Dataset <em title="SHOULD" class="rfc2119">SHOULD</em> be avoided as this can create legal conflicts.
Information about licences and rights <em title="SHOULD" class="rfc2119">SHOULD</em> be provided on the level of Distribution. Information about licences and rights MAY be provided for a Dataset in addition to but not instead of the information provided for the Distributions of that Dataset. Providing licence or rights information for a Dataset that is different from information provided for a Distribution of that Dataset <em title="SHOULD" class="rfc2119">SHOULD</em> be avoided as this can create legal conflicts.
</p>


Expand Down Expand Up @@ -1587,6 +1592,9 @@ <h3>Class: Dataset</h3>
<p class="issue" data-number="86">
The need to be able to provide usage notes for a dataset or distribution has been identified as a requirement to be satisfied in the revision of DCAT.
</p>
<p class="issue" data-number="433">
The need to be able to provide citations for a distribution has been identified as a potential requirement to be satisfied in the revision of DCAT.
</p>

<table class="definition">
<thead><tr><th>RDF Class:</th><th><a href="http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset">dcat:Dataset</a></th></tr></thead>
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