Probably I missed the relevant discussion, but I wonder why the DCAT-AP conformance statement (Section 9) refers to "an application that provides metadata", whereas DCAT used the notion of "data catalog[ue]" [1]. Quoting from [1]:
A data catalog conforms to DCAT if:
- It is organized into datasets and distributions.
- An RDF description of the catalog itself and its datasets and distributions is available (but the choice of RDF syntaxes, access protocols, and access policies is not mandated by this specification).
- The contents of all metadata fields that are held in the catalog, and that contain data about the catalog itself and its dataset and distributions, are included in this RDF description, expressed using the appropriate classes and properties from DCAT, except where no such class or property exists.
- All classes and properties defined in DCAT are used in a way consistent with the semantics declared in this specification.
- DCAT-compliant catalogs may include additional non-DCAT metadata fields and additional RDF data in the catalog's RDF description.
A DCAT profile is a specification for data catalogs that adds additional constraints to DCAT. A data catalog that conforms to the profile also conforms to DCAT. Additional constraints in a profile MAY include:
- A minimum set of required metadata fields
- Classes and properties for additional metadata fields not covered in DCAT
- Controlled vocabularies or URI sets as acceptable values for properties
- Requirements for specific access mechanisms (RDF syntaxes, protocols) to the catalog's RDF description
The WG should consider replacing "application that provides metadata" with "data catalogue" to prevent consinstency issues, of course unless the use of a different term is intentional and for a good reason.
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Andrea,
The DCAT specification talks about the catalogue as a single entity. You can look at the catlogue and say: "yes this catalogue is DCAT-compliant.
The Application Profile on the other hand is concerned with data exchange between two applications. Therefore the specification distinguishes between the application that provides information and the one that consumes data. Both of those may be DCAT-compliant catalogues but the important thing is that the data that they exchange complies with the Application Profile. Having said that, I don't see a problem changing "application" to "data catalogue" in the relavent places in the specification.
Makx,
your answer raises the question whether the AP is intended as a DCAT profile (which should have the same specification target, i.e. a data catalogue) or a standalone specification that re-uses some of the classes and properties defined in DCAT but ultimately has a different specification scope and target. If this is the case, this should be made crystal clear (and then also the name of the spec should be changed).
Also note that the current conformance statement only talks about requirements that "an application that provides metadata" must comply with. It does not talk about requirements for an application that consumes metadata. Thus, I am not entirely clear why we should change the specification target from "data catalog" to "application that provides metadata".
On a related note, is it really intended that also DCAT-AP clients can claim conformance with the DCAT-AP spec?
Best regards,
Michael
Section 9.2 with conformance requirements for receivers of data included in draft 0.04 at https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/document/dcat-application-profile-data-portals-europe-draft-final-text.