1 / 13

Vocabulary Governance

Vocabulary Workshop, RAL, February 25, 2009. Vocabulary Governance. Types of Governance. Content Governance Determines the concepts to be included in controlled vocabularies and their labels (URIs, text terms and definitions) Technical Governance

cerise
Download Presentation

Vocabulary Governance

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Vocabulary Workshop, RAL, February 25, 2009 Vocabulary Governance

  2. Types of Governance • Content Governance • Determines the concepts to be included in controlled vocabularies and their labels (URIs, text terms and definitions) • Technical Governance • Storage, versioning and serving of controlled vocabularies

  3. Types of Governance • Content Governance • The history of oceanographic data management is littered with examples of poor vocabulary content governance • Decisions made by individuals – even students • Decisions taken with inadequate thought • Definitions conspicuous by their absence • Lazy governance (saying “yes” to all requests)

  4. Types of Governance • Content Governance • As a consequence we have ‘governed’ international list problems. Consider the so-called ‘ship codes’. We have: • Two hulls with the same URI because they had the same name • Well-known vessels wiped from metadata because they changed name • Inclusion of ‘Helicopter’ and ‘Route: Folkestone - St. Malo/Boulog’ in the vocabulary

  5. Types of Governance • Content Governance Models • Benign dictator • Can work, but doesn’t scale and what happens if the dictator goes under a bus? • Moderated caucus • Commonly adopted based on e-mail list servers and can work well • Risks associated with the model • Caucus apathy • Caucus intransigence or moderator too weak • Moderator overload (tooling can help) • Moderator too strong • Formal committee • Very slow • Constitution can be a source of problems (no veto!!)

  6. Types of Governance • Technical Governance • The history of oceanographic data management is littered with examples of poor vocabulary technical governance • Multiple copies • One site served two versions of a list • Both were different • Neither was the master • Weak management • Scrappy files scattered over several FTP sites • Local copies taken • Like Galapagos finches these evolve becoming similar but significantly different • No version labelling or timestamps • Evolving local copies had no idea how they related to their origin

  7. Types of Governance • Technical Governance Models • Feature Type Catalogue • Designed for GIS world • Working model specified in ISO19135 • Equally applicable to vocabularies • NDG Vocabulary Server follows 19135 in outline, but not detail (particularly their terminology) • Ontology Repositories • Ingestions of OWL files • MMI operate one based on Drupal security • Ontology download as files or SPARQL query interface

  8. Types of Governance • Technical Governance Models • Community distribution sites • Community managed collection resources • Simple catalogue of resources to download as files • OBO is a classic example • Vocabulary server • Terms and lists given URLs • URLs serve XML documents • May also provide API access

  9. Governance Best Practice • Content Governance Do’s and Don’ts • Do process requests for change as quickly as possible • Do ensure that change requests don’t redefine the collection • Do establish managed deprecation • Do insist on definitions for terms • Don’t change the semantics mapped to a URN • Don’t delete concepts

  10. Governance Best Practice • Technical governance Do’s and Don’ts • Do provide on-line access to the latest version • Do provide URIs to concepts and collections • Do provide access to previous versions • Do empower content governance with tools • Do provide both clients and service APIs • Don’t allow URNs to change • Don’t make unnecessary change to URLs

  11. NDG Governance Model • Each list is allocated a content governance authority • These include • BODC internal governance • SeaDataNet Technical Task Team • SeaVoX (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission caucus) • ICES • CF Standard Names Committee • NASA Global Change Master Directory • International Hydrographic Bureau • ISO

  12. NDG Governance Model • Technical governance is delivered by the Vocabulary Server • This has two content update models • Governance authority contacts BODC requesting change (e.g. CF) • BODC monitors governance authority outputs making changes when these change (e.g. GCMD, ISO) • Changes made by BODC staff • This doesn’t scale, so we need a…

  13. NDG Governance Model • Vocabulary Editor • Governance authority designates individuals who will make change • Authentication identifies these individuals • Authorisation determines which lists in the server portfolio they are allowed to modify • Web-form tool • API to allow edit functionality to be built into other tools • Currently under construction

More Related