Title: FOAF
Identifier: http://stage.dublincore.org/usage/meetings/2007/08/singapore/.html/foaf.html
Created: 2007-07-19
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2007-08-18 From: Andrew Wilson <andrew.wilson@NAA.GOV.AU>
Couple of things about the meeting packet. I
inadvertently reversed the order of references 7 and
8. Tom, could you please change them around on the page at:
http://stage.dublincore.org/usage/meetings/2007/08/singapore/.html/foaf.html.
Ie. The URL at reference 7 should actually be at reference
8 and vice versa. Thanks.
I know I gave quite a lot of references for this topic, probably too
much for people to read in practice. I'm not sure that there is much
point in actually including the FOAF specification as I suspect people
won't have time to read it. Maybe Tom can just provide the URL without
actually including the document in the meeting packet? Can we include in
the packet the draft functional requirements document, the assessment of
FOAF against the FR, and Dan's short paper on describing agents with
FOAF, as well as the excerpt from the ePrints application profile
referred to by Andy and which is included in Tom's first email about the
meeting packet? I think that should be more than sufficient.=20
Re Topic 4:
This is about exploring the viability of using FOAF as the DCMI
recommendation for describing agents associated with the resources
described by DCMI description sets. I hope that at the UB meeting we can
answer the following questions:
1. Is the Agents FR document adequate for the needs of the DCMI
community?
2. How well does FOAF meet the Agents FR? Is the ePrints AP work
relevant and useful?
3. Is FOAF/ePrints adequate and appropriate for describing agents as
part of DC description sets?
4. If the answer to 3 is 'yes', what needs to be done to make
FOAF/ePrints useable?
The basic minimum reading required for this topic is the
Agents FR draft [1], Dan's assessment of FOAF against the
draft FR [2], and the relevant section of the ePrints AP
[3]. It would be really helpful if the UB could also read
Dan's introduction to using FOAF [4] but I think we can manage
without it if they don't.
[1] http://dublincore.org/groups/agents/agentFRdraft2-2.html
[2] http://dublincore.org/agentswiki/FoafReview
[3] http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/EPrints_Application_Profile#Description_of_an_Agent
http://stage.dublincore.org/usage/meetings/2007/08/singapore/Eprints-excerpt.pdf
[4] http://rdfweb.org/mt/foaflog/archives/2003/07/10/12.05.33/
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2007-07-18 - from Andrew
The Agents Task Group, which consists of myself, Tom Baker, and Dan
Brickley, was set up following DC2006 to progress work on developing a
method for describing Agents as part of DC description sets. There are a
number of unresolved work items waiting to be completed and Tom and I
think the best chance to make progress would be to discuss the Friend Of
A Friend (FOAF) and Agents requirements at the UB meeting in Singapore.
It would be a great help if you could all come to Singapore prepared to
discuss the Agent description issues. The Agents TG has its own Wiki [1]
which includes the workplan and links to existing documents.
I'd like to set aside 60 minutes on the Singapore UB Agenda to discuss
the agents work. The discussion must start from the basic position that
it is not feasible for DCMI to develop a new set of properties to
describe Agents. Although there is a lot of interest in the Community in
how to describe agents there has been virtually no interest shown in
contributing to the work of the Group. So, if the UB decide that FOAF
does not meet our agent description requirements then we will need to
seriously consider the future of our agents work.
Before the older Agents Working Group was dissolved [2] we agreed that
the best way forward was to develop an AP using existing properties [3].
Dan Brickley has been interested for some time in moving FOAF closer to
the DCMI community and proposed that it be investigated by DCMI as a
metadata schema for describing agents in DC description sets. Dan has
recently done a comparison [6] of the Agents requirements, as
articulated some years ago [4], and the FOAF specification [5]. A brief
discussion about identifying things using FOAF at [7], written a few
years ago by Dan B., will also be a good introduction to some of the
issues. These documents should prepare you discuss whether FOAF is an
adequate and appropriate mechanism for describing agents as part of DCMI
description sets. FOAF is purely an RDF vocabulary so we need to discuss
what consequences this would have for implementors should we agree to
recommend FOAF.
It is important to understand how agent descriptions are linked to
resource descriptions in description sets. A very helpful presentation
on 'Agents and the DCAM' was given by Andy Powell to the Agents WG at
the Madrid Conference [8].
Finally, it might be informative if you have time to also consider the
work that IFLA is doing on Authority files in the draft Functional
requirements for Authority data [9].
My hope is that we finish the UB meeting with agreement on the following
issues:
1. Is the Agents FR document adequate?
2. How well does FOAF meet the Agents FR?
3. Is FOAF adequate and appropriate for describing agents as part of DC
description sets?
4. If the answer to 3 is 'yes', what needs to be done to make FOAF
useable?
[1] http://dublincore.org/agentswiki/FrontPage
[2] http://dublincore.org/groups/agents/
[3] http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0510&L=dc-agents&P=154
[4] http://dublincore.org/groups/agents/agentFRdraft2-2.html
[5] http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/
[6] http://dublincore.org/agentswiki/FoafReview
[7] http://rdfweb.org/mt/foaflog/archives/2003/07/10/12.05.33/
[8] http://dublincore.org/groups/agents/dc2005_dc-agents-meeting.ppt
[9] http://www.ifla.org/VII/d4/FRANAR-ConceptualModel-2ndReview.pdf