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DCMI-endorsed application profiles: review and approval processes

Tom Baker, Juha Hakala

2021-11-19

Introduction

Much of the perceived value of DCMI Metadata Terms
(DCMI-MT) lies in the generic nature of its properties.
These terms are useful where broad, cross-domain, or
cross-language interoperability is desired.

With the exception of five properties used specifically
for describing learning resources and three properties
for describing collections, which were added between
2001 and 2005, all of the 56 properties defined in
DCMI-MT are of a cross-disciplinary nature.

The notion of "application profile",
which entered Dublin Core discourse in
1999,
provided a way to keep the DCMI-MT vocabulary relatively
small and generic by providing a context for combining
DCMI-MT properties with properties from other, often
domain-specific, namespaces, or by added constraints
on how properties are used in a specific community or
for a specific application.

In current DCMI practice, application profiles are based
on RDF vocabularies -- vocabularies that conform to the
RDF data model (in which each property is explicitly
associated with an described entity) and have been
published in an RDF serialization syntax. This is the
case even if it is anticipated that a profile may also
be implemented with non-RDF models or encodings (such
as XML or JSON).

The five domain-specific properties that were added
between 2001 and 2005 were approved the DCMI Usage
Board because they filled a gap in an application
profile under development in a DCMI working group.

The process described here aims at striking a balance
between a desire to keep the DCMI-MT vocabulary small
and generic, a need to provide URIs in the DCMI-MT
namespace for properties needed in application profiles
developed by DCMI working groups, and a need to improve
the value proposition for fee-paying institutional
members of DCMI.

According to this process, a DCMI member institution
can propose a draft application profile as a candidate
for endorsement and official publication by DCMI as a
"DCMI-endorsed application profile", to be featured
on the DCMI website and promoted for use in the wider
community.

Steps in the process

  1. A draft application profile is put forward as a
    candidate for DCMI endorsement by submitting it to the
    Chair of the Governing Board.

  2. The proposal to the Governing Board must include an
    initial draft of the profile, which must include:

  • A description of its purpose, scope, domain
    applicability, and intended uses. If more than one
    entity is described (eg, Books and Authors), a domain
    model must be specified.

  • The name of at least one person willing to serve as
    chair of a profile working group.

  • The name of at least one member of the Usage Board
    willing to serve in the working group.

  1. To proceed on the endorsement track, the proposal must
    be supported by a simple majority of the Governing
    Board.

  2. Once a proposal has the support of the Governing
    Board, the Usage Board is asked to clarify whether it
    can review the profile. This gives the Usage Board an
    opportunity to say if it considers the scope of the
    proposed profile to lie too far outside of its
    expertise or to be semantically irrelevant for
    DCMI-MT. This initial examination of the proposal by
    the Usage Board will be limited to determining
    appropriateness and scope and is not expected to
    address questions of detail.

  3. An official DCMI Working Group, tasked with further
    development of the profile draft, is created. This WG
    is supported by DCMI with a public mailing list,
    Github repository, and access to video conferencing.
    Membership in working groups is open to interested
    members of the public.

  4. The working group reviews and edits the draft, with
    discussions and meeting notes posted to the public
    mailing list, Github repository, or Github issue
    tracker.

  5. When the draft is deemed mature, it will be posted for
    public comment for at least one month. All substantive
    issues raised will be publicly addressed and resolved.
    The working group may invite the wider community to
    indicate their interest in the draft profile as
    evidence of community demand.

  6. Once public review is complete, if a required property
    is not found in existing namespaces, it may be
    proposed by the Working Group to the Usage Board for
    incorporation into DCMI-MT.

  7. Once a draft profile has passed public comment and is
    considered by the working group to be mature enough
    for publication, it will be submitted by the working
    group to the Usage Board for final review.

  8. The Usage Board will review any proposed properties
    and communicate their decisions to the profile
    working group. The Usage Board may ask the working
    group to revise and resubmit a proposed property.

  9. Once a draft profile is considered to be ready, with
    all properties defined in namespaces (including
    DCMI-MT), the working group submits the entire
    proposal to the Usage Board for final approval.

  10. The Usage Board reviews the draft profile with regard
    to completeness and clarity of documentation. The
    Usage Board may ask the working group to revise and
    resubmit or, if no issues remain to be addressed, it
    approves its publication as a "DCMI-endorsed"
    application profile.

  11. Once endorsed, the profile will be published on the
    DCMI website and any terms approved by the Usage
    Board will simultaneously be published in a new
    version of DCMI Metadata Terms.

  12. If it is determined, at a future time, that a
    "DCMI-endorsed" profile needs to be updated, the
    process described above will be reactivated to review
    and decide on any proposed changes.

Previous versions

  • 2021-09-21 (Tom Baker, Juha Hakala)
  • 2020-07-14 (Paul Walk, Tom Baker)