Move forward with URI management proposal

[kestlund]

Requirements: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/hydra/URI+Selection+Working+Group?preview=/75105049/83231112/HydraVocabManagerFunctionalRequirements.pdf

Working Group: https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/hydra/URI+Selection+Working+Group

Current status: awaiting new brand/name

[kestlund]

Postponed for rebranding. Handed off to DCE, Aug 24, 2017.

[kestlund]

@no-reply @mark-dce , Any update for the Steering meeting next week?

[jlhardes]

Background

The URI Selection Working Group is in place to review requests from the Samvera Community regarding predicates that need to be created in order to properly construct RDF statements for objects that are uploaded to Hyrax or are being managed with Samvera software (in combination with Fedora 4, in particular).

The Predicate Decision Tree and, fairly soon, the MODS to RDF Mapping Recommendation are meant as guides to help select appropriate predicates but sometimes the right predicate is not part of any existing ontology. Examples include:

• Requests for new predicates - https://github.com/samvera-labs/uri_selection_wg/issues
• Instances in the Hyrax code of local properties that are currently not resolving to anything - see relativePath and importURL in https://github.com/samvera/hyrax/blob/master/app/models/concerns/hyrax/basic_metadata.rb
• MODS to RDF Mapping Recommendation predicates that need to be created - see mappings for mods:physicalDescription and mods:identifier as examples

Options

In order to create and host these predicates for Samvera Community (and wider) use, we note the following options:

• Create properties that are managed in a git repo and resolve to Github pages with definitions and recommended uses
• Develop a Samvera Community Vocabulary Manager as a standalone site, similar to http://opaquenamespace.org
  • see Functional Requirements document for a proposed approach to this development

Questions

We have questions that the Samvera Metadata Interest Group cannot answer:

• What should a domain be for any predicates that the Samvera Community creates and hosts, regardless of the method for hosting (git repo, standalone site, etc) - we’re contemplating [something].samvera.org?
• What are the plans for developing a Samvera Community Vocabulary Manager? The functional requirements were produced right around the time of the Samvera project name change so this was placed on a back-burner until after that was complete. The name change took a year and this never really came back to the front of the stove.

The git repo option is the quickest method to get up and running but it might limit how the URI Selection Working Group can manage and implement requests and it doesn’t seem great as a long-term solution, but maybe it can work.