[OAI-implementers] rdf

[Eric Lease Morgan]

Thomas G. Habing <thabing@uiuc.edu> wrote:

> 1) There is no authoritative RDF XSD available (that we've know of) such as
> would be required to conform to OAI validation requirements (nor for that
> matter are there authoritative and extensible DCQ or DCA XSDs presently
> available, and the available OAI DC XSD might not be extensible enough --
> see below).  There is presently considerable debate within the RDF community
> as to whether XSD is sufficient to describe RDF -- so you might be skating
> on thin ice here.  One of the problems is that the true, allowable content
> model for a given RDF element really varies based RDF attribute values
> (e.g., RDF:parseType) -- something that's difficult to represent rigorously
> enough in XSD.

I'm a little bit out of my element here. What is XSD? A way to
describe/initialize a namespace? ... Oh, it seems to be a schema.


> [Cool stuff deleted.]
> The bottom-line is that there's a fair amount of work to be done to create
> multi-namespace RDF files that can be validated using XSD as envisioned by
> OAI.  We'll be interested in any conclusions you reach.  We'll pass along
> what we learn as well.

It sort of sounds to me that in order to create alternative metadata formats
to be used in OAI one must create an XSD -- a schema, and RDF does not
cleanly fit into schemas. Correct?

-- 
Eric Lease Morgan
NCSU Libraries
http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/staff/morgan/