Hi Everyone,
Since neither Steve nor I are at TDWG this year, we wanted to give an update on the efforts of the RDF Best Practices task group. Below is a run-down on activities, and also some opportunities for getting involved:
0. Background We were chartered last October under the Technical Architecture Group to document the advantages and disadvantages of various ways in which RDF and related technologies are being applied to TDWG standards. Details are at: http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/
Issues we are currently tracking are at: http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/issues/list (Not all issues are being worked on actively.)
The core members of the team are listed at: http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/CharterOfTG
If you are at TDWG this week, and have a question about RDF and TDWG, please relate it to one of the core members over beer. Core members: please answer as you see fit, and report back to the group.
i. Beginner's Guide to RDF http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/Beginners Steve has written a comprehensive guide, based on extensive examples from the wild, and with many references. Time and effort spent reading this guide will be rewarded with an excellent understanding of RDF and its related technology.
ii. Google group. https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/tdwg-rdf Steve and I both think that valuable distinctions and insights have surfaced in group discussions. Consensus has been rare, and alternative ways of doing things are documented in the archives. We plan on summarizing some of these discussions, and posting the summaries on the wiki. We may delegate some of this, and would be happy to see people volunteer to take on summarizing a thread.
iii. Competency questions. We continue to collect competency questions at http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/CompetencyQuestions A competency question is used to help define both the structure and the content of a knowledge base capable of supporting specific use cases. Please share your competency questions for the knowledge base known as "the semantic web for biodiversity informatics".
iv. Use case repository. In preparation for the Kansas workshop [1] that John Deck organized in May, use cases were contributed and collected here: http://bit.ly/Lb0A4C That page is being preserved as an artifact of the meeting, and is now closed to editing. We've copied the use cases to http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/UseCases
Note that the term "use case" is used loosely here, as items on the list were meant as entry points to discussion at the workshop. Everyone is invited to add questions and comments to existing items, and to add new ones.
Would someone like to tag or categorize these? Would someone like to map these to the the Issue Tracker?
v. Class inventory http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/ClassInventory Is there a class you use or need that's not listed? Please add it.
vi. Sandboxes See http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2011-December/002829.html
vii. Data inventory This is a stub. See http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/DataInventory
----- Moving forward: i. Like all TDWG groups, we exist to serve the community. Feel free to share thoughts via email to me (jsachs@csee.umbc.edu) and Steve (steve.baskauf@vanderbilt.edu), or (preferably) to everyone. Let Steve know if you want to be added to the Task Group email discussion list.
ii. Our goal remains the documentation of usage in the wild, coupled with discussion and, where consensus exists, recommendations. As noted above, summarizing recent discussions on the Google Group will be a part of that.
iii. A number of more ambitious tasks have been proposed. For example, one of the follow-on activities from the Kansas workshop was creating a data testbed to be used for evaluating competing ontological approaches (http://bit.ly/JcAcKK). Who would like to be involved in taking this forward?
iv. Other potential activities were identified in Kansas (http://bit.ly/Jzw0E9) and last year in New Orleans (http://code.google.com/p/tdwg-rdf/wiki/TDWG2012MtgNotes). More workshops may be useful. Do we have volunteers to host?
v. Steve Baskauf, John Deck, and John Wieczorek (of the Darwin Core Task Group) have volunteered to draft an RDF Guide for Darwin Core similar to the existing XML and Text Guides. This guide would provide guidance to providers who would like to expose their existing metadata as RDF. It is NOT an attempt to turn Darwin Core into an ontology nor to resolve outstanding issues related to relationships among classes within and outside of Darwin Core. See https://groups.google.com/d/msg/tdwg-rdf/h2Sq5nu7Ja8/-dSAGXAOodoJ for more details.
Questions and comments are welcome - Thanks, Joel.