Introduction to Application Profiles

Jon Phipps: Overview
Karen Coyle: Step-by-Step
Diane Hillmann: Context
Application Profiles

What's an Application Profile?

It's a document

It's a document of an agreement

It's a document of an agreement on a model

It's a document of an agreement on a model of our stuff in the world

It's a document of an agreement on a model of how we describe our things in our world

It's a document of an agreement on a model of how we describe ourthings in our world (domain) in the context of the global web of data

Things?

Things?
have a formal definition...

Things?
have a formal definition...
Every individual in the OWLworld is a member of the classowl:Thing.

OWL?
Web Ontology Language

OWL?
A language that can be used to formalize a domain by defining classes, the relations between them, and properties of those classes

OWL
can define the semantics of an Application Profile

Semantics?

Semantics?
What we mean when we define a class called 'book' and describe it with a property called 'title’.

Semantics?
What we mean when we define a class called 'book' and describe it with a property called 'title'.
The 'Semantic Web' is a web of meaning that uses the RDF model

RDF?
Resource Description Framework

RDF?
Resource Description Framework
“is a framework for representing information in the Web”

RDF?
“has a simple data model that is easy for applications to process and manipulate.”

RDF?
“has a formal semantics which provides a dependable basis for reasoning about the meaning of an RDF expression.”

RDF?
“URI references are used for naming all … things in RDF.”

RDF?
“is an open-world framework that allows anyone to make statements about any resource.”

RDF?
“The underlying structure of any expression in RDF is a collection of triples”

Triples?
consist of a subject, a predicate and an object. A set of triples is called an RDF graph

Triples?
consist of a resource, a property and a value surrogate.

Value Surrogate?
Not a value, but some thing that denotes the value

Value Surrogate?
can be a Literal or a non-Literal

Literal?
Can be a Plain Literal or a Typed Literal

Plain Literal?
Is just a string with an optional (in this case totally unnecessary) language type
Plain Literal:
“Samuel Clemens”@en-US

Typed Literal?
A string that must be interpreted
Typed Literal:
“27” ^^xsd:integer

Typed Literal?
A string that must be interpreted
Typed Literal:
“27” ^^xsd:integer
denotes the number 27

Non-Literal?
A URI that refers to a resource

Non-Literal?
http://RDVocab.info/termList/RDAContentType/1012
Identifies the skos:Concept labeled
“sounds”@en-US
In the skos:ConceptScheme identified by the URI
http://RDVocab.info/termList/RDAContentType

URI?
A resource identifier.

URI?
A globally unique resource identifier.
“All URIs share the property that different persons or organizations can independently create them, and use them to identify things.”

Predicate?
A URI
that identifies the property of the subjectof the triple

Predicate?
“Since RDF uses URIs instead of words to name things in statements, RDF refers to a set of URIs (particularly a set intended for a specific purpose) as a vocabulary”

Property?
http://RDVocab.info/Elements/placeOfProductionidentifies the property labeled
“Place of production”
in the vocabulary identified byhttp://RDVocab.info/Elements/

Property?
A vocabulary can declare a property to be a subproperty of another property.

Property?
A vocabulary can declare a property to be a subproperty of another property.This creates a formal relationship between the properties

Can we talk about APs now?
Please?

An AP defines Semantics
The Classes of resources your metadata is describing
The Vocabularies that you will use as properties to describe them

Classes?
OMG
Please, don’t start that again

An AP defines Syntax
Valid value ranges and datatypes for each property
Valid lists of values (controlled vocabularies) for properties
Cardinality of each property

Dublin Core defines this validation profile for each property as a“Statement Template”

A set of Statement Templates is a “Description Set”

An AP defines…
An AP can describe multiple Description Sets.

An AP defines…
An AP can describe multiple Description Sets.
The full set of Description Sets is a “Description Set Profile”

Application Profiles
Step-by-Step
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CC:DA Application Profile Intro

1. Domain model
Person
WEMI
Topic
FRBR
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2. Determine elements
Work
Title
Format
etc
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3. Identify vocabularies
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Identify vocabularies
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Identify vocabularies
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Vocabulary do's & don'ts
Do not select elements based on their names or labels
Do select elements based on their definitions
Do pay attention to what values can be used
Don't think that you can select an element that doesn't quite match your need, and use it anyway
Do think: INTEROPERABILITY
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One vocabulary
Vocabulary
AP
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More than one vocabulary
Vocabulary A
Vocabulary B
AP
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Rolling your own
Vocabulary
AP
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Rolling your own
Vocabulary
All elments must be defined outside of the AP.
AP
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"Constraints"
Mandatory/optional
Repeatability
Values (cannot conflict with defined element)‏
Free text
Controlled list of values
Formatted text (e.g. dates)‏
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What is the impact of all this on our world?
The Context for Application Profiles

In the world we knew, interoperability was ensured by “compliance with standards”
All of used the same ones in a closed world
Data created by humans under strict guidelines
In an open world, interoperablity depends on:
Technologies that reach beyond one community
Data built in a variety of ways by people with different ideas of the world
Machines that act broadly based on human oversight
Understanding Interoperability
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We’ve long accepted the limits of requiring upfront consensus to ensure interoperability
In a world of APs we can specialize beyond the core of generally useful data
We don’t need humans to ‘dumb down’ specialist data to enable sharing and interoperability
Machines can invoke relationships to generalize specialist data when necessary, without removing the value of extended specialized data for specialists
Why This Approach Instead?
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We can’t afford to “go it alone”
We can’t afford to ignore the world of data outside libraries
We can’t afford to create all our data with humans
We can’t afford NOT to rethink how we operate
The Value of an Open World
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It’s often free and easily available
It’s ‘good enough’ (our stuff isn’t perfect either)
It takes us where we can’t go with our current data
It’s maintained by someone else
We can choose to use data or not, APs allow us to document that use, automate the process, and expose the data to others
What’s Out There? Data!
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Records can be aggregated from statements when we need them
Statement-based data can be managed and improved more easily than record-based data
Statement-based data can carry provenance for each statement, allowing quality decisions to be made at a more granular level
Changing Our Data Management Ideas
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Getting From Here to There
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The RDA Vocabularies
The principles of extension inherent in the RDF Vocabulary standards used
Our experience in building and using data
Using What We Already Know
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Proliferating our ideas and experience with bibliographic data to the broader Web world
Using newer technology to achieve more efficiency, transparency, and functionality
If retrenchment is the only answer, the end point is zero
Saving our precious human resources to think, evaluate, ensure quality, and innovate
To Build Ourselves a New Future
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We can map it in a variety of ways for a variety of uses
We can still use MARC as a [lossy] exchange format as long as we need it
It offers insufficient flexibility as the basis for a new data world inter-connected to the Web
We can use our skills and our understanding of bibliographic description to lead the way forward
What About Our Legacy Data?
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Specialist communities are already thinking about what they need that RDA doesn’t provide
Using the extensibility of RDF vocabularies allows them to choose from a number of options
Moving proposals through the RDA process
Extending the vocabularies through their community domain
Chosing the extension option reflects the reality that consensus has its limits, and specialist data may be better managed at a different level
Some Concrete Suggestions
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With Application Profiles we can:
Document our decisions clearly
Measure compliance with our own intentions
Express our decisions in a machine-actionable way
Make connections with other data communities by re-using their data semantics
RDA expresses this ideal in its stated goals
What Do We Gain?
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Less one-at-a-time creation and more data design, data improvement, data evaluation
Ability to look at our contrained resources and reduced budgets as the opportunity to reinvent ourselves
Rethinking Our Role
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Guidelines for Dublin Core Application Profiles
http://dublincore.org/documents/profile-guidelines/
RDA Vocabularies
http://metadataregistry.org/rdabrowse.htm
Thanks! Links! Questions?
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Introduction to Application Profiles

by Diane I. Hillmann

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