Datasets may include versioning information, as well as references to other versions of the same dataset.
The proposal is to include in DCAT-AP a set of optional properties concerning versioning, e.g.
- version number
- version notes
- URI of previous version(s)
- URI of next version(s)
Properties defined in RADion [1] and ADMS [2] can be re-used for this purpose.
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The DCAT specification does not include these properties, so I think we can't include them in the application profile.
I do not understand why not. We should do whatever is useful and effective at solving problems. There's no reason not to use terms from any appropriate vocabulary or even invent new ones if there's a good argument for it.
You are right that an Application Profile can, in general, take terms from any vocabulary it wants.
However, the objective of this Working Group is to define an Application Profile of DCAT, in other words we are looking at "essential elements and attributes of DCAT in the European context" as stated as objective 1 at http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/solution/dcat-application-profile-data-portals-europe.
If we think that there are properties missing from the base DCAT specification, I would suggest to submit those in comments on the Last Call Working Draft at W3C by Monday 8 April.
"DCAT-compliant catalogs may include additional non-DCAT metadata fields and additional RDF data in the catalog's RDF description."
That said, I've fired off an email to the dcat list and we'll see if they bite. I can't stress how amazingly important it is to give the users of data a route to have errors corrected. For example; see: http://equipment.data.ac.uk/
This contains records from several sources and the first time the actual expert in charge of an item of equipment finds the data may be on this site rather than the site from which the data came. In this case it's really important that they have a route to get their own data corrected.
Whatever happens we can have suggested extension patterns. A data catalogue can conform to the euro-dcat-ap plus anything else, be it alternatives or extensions.
As properties related to versioning are not defined in DCAT, a comment was made on the Last Call Working Draft. Resolution of that comment by the GLD WG is pending.
As a compromise, I propose to add adms:version and adms:versionNotes to the Application Profile. The use of xhv:last, xhv:next and xhv:previous to link to other versions may be controversial.
Included in draft 3.