discussion of the Creative Commons Metadata work

[Andy Powell <a.powell AT ukoln.ac.uk>]

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Mike Linksvayer wrote:

> > As to where the appropriateness of DC reuse lies, while on the face of
> > it this would seem to be in many places, unfortunately Dublin Core has
> > some problems in the looseness of the definition of its terms (e.g.
> > range of dc:creator), which cause confusion.  At least to me.
>
> I've heard that explanation before, I'm being a jerk and grousing.  My
> preference would be for fuzziness over lack of interoperability.  I find
> it telling that this question from
> <http://rdfweb.org/topic/UsingDublinCoreCreator> goes unanswered:

I'd be interested to know if you find the draft DCMI Abstract Model at

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/metadata/dcmi/abstract-model/

helpful with respect to these issues.

The abstract model (which you'll note doesn't currently have any formal
status within DCMI) says that most of the DCMI properties relate to other
resources (people, places, subjects, etc.).  I.e. that the value of most
DCMI properties is another resource.  (I say "most", because there are
some open issues as to whether this statement is always true of
dc:identifier).

Given the view presented in the abstract model, one has to treat the
fairly commonly used RDF construct (as endorsed by DCMI)

<rdf:Description>
  <dc:creator>Dan Brickley</dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>

as a convenient shorthand for

<rdf:Description>
  <dc:creator>
    <rdf:Description>
      <rdfs:label>Dan Brickley</rdfs:label>
    </rdf:Description>
  </dc:creator>
</rdf:Description>

I have tried to argue within DCMI, without much success, that it is
unfortunate that DCMI allows this confusion to continue by having two
documents that recommend the two different constructs.  But at this stage
I don't hold out much hope of changing that situation.

Andy
--
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