The property dcat:landingPage could be used to link to a "a Web page that provides access to the dataset, its distributions and/or additional information" (section 7.2, page 12 of Draft 1). On such a page, information could be included how you can get the dataset (e.g. order a Bluray disk etc.).

The proposed resolution is to add text to the note with the property dcat:landingPage in section 7.2.1 to explain that datasets do not necessarily need to be available in digital format and that other types of distributions can be referred to in the text available at the dcat:landingPage.

I think differentiation between online and offline resources is vital!

It was suggested to use accessURL tell apart what is on the web and what not.

Is this consistent with the fact, that Dataset has a mandatory property dcat:distribution and Distribution has a minimal property accessURL?

From the teleconference; there's also the case of digitial data which is not provided via the web, eg. mailed via CD (or stack of hard drives).

I agree that not all datasets listed on data catalogues should be available for download on the Internet. Size restrictions might be one reason. Another reason could be that the data sets are not availalbe free of charge, i.e. it is not "open" data. If if the datasets are not available it still makes sense for governments to catalogue them on data portals. I will create a user scenario for this, to elicit requirements for commercialised datasets.

https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/discussion/provide-your-use-case-and-user-scenario

Draft 2 now includes a usage note with access URL, a mandatory property for Distribution:

This property contains a URL that gives access to a distribution of the dataset. The resource that is present at the accessURL may contain information about how to get the dataset if it is not available in digital form.