Summary of Main Points Re: Metadata and DITA for Next TC Meeting

Have gone through a series of emails and TC meeting minutes on the subject of our recent discussions around metadata and DITA, and to summarize things:

Key Issues/Observations Identified on Metadata Usage with DITA:

Perceived limitations to how DITA can work with external taxonomy standards 

A preference in the community for wanting to use attributes rather than elements

Current inability to use a URI in an attribute 

While subjectScheme is designed for use with  taxonomies, but is deficient as currently implemented  (comment from Kris that

subjectScheme
was underspecified in DITA 1.2, and backwards compatibility issues limited what was possible to do in DITA 1.3)

Current Suggestions for DITA 2.0:

• extend SubjectScheme so that it is possible to state that “this is my enumeration value, different from my key name” (Eliot Kimber) This could be done by adding
 a new enumeration-value element for use within subjectdef element to store a unique ID value alongside the key and readable value (Joe Pairman)

• @props whose value allows URIs; maybe a specialization-based @ whose value is a URI (Eliot Kimber); alternately, create a new, global metadata-specific attribute (“@metadata”? “@taxonomy”?) that could take on this role (Joe Pairman)

• Create a semantic mapping mechanism to pair the names of DITA elements (specialized or not) with data in an equivalent, external standard or mechanism (Joe Pairman)

Where is this request coming from?

Some DITA practitioners at recent DITA Listening sessions are asking for "better metadata support" within DITA. Reasons are scattered, but include requests for a more "associative metadata model
in order to apply it in bulk after the content has been published" (using third-party tools). 

A Possible Role of RDFa?

At the TC Meeting of November 14, RDFa was suggested, and while it was agreed that it
could play a role, it was generally agreed that it should a) not be incorporated into core DITA, but instead as a specialization, and b) RDFa usage is on the decline. If there was sufficient interest, a Working Group could be struck to devise a
 specialization. (This was not a specific motion, and this has not come to pass).

Detailed Timeline (courtesy of Joe Pairman):

2017-10-23: Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201710/msg00038.html) from Scott Hudson suggesting simply adding RDFa (lite?) support to DITA
 to solve metadata problems at one swoop including possible replacement for subjectScheme.

2017-10-24 Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201710/msg00044.html) from Joe Pairman urging caution regarding wholesale RDFa incorporation due
 to adoption issues and declining external interest in RDFa. Ended by  saying that it could make sense but needs careful thought.

2017-11-08: Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00014.html) from Eliot stressing that domain- or organization-specific metadata stuff
 should not burden the core of DITA and instead people should be encouraged to make use of, for example, the specialization mechanism. Perhaps attribute model could be improved in DITA 2.0 in response to Parson’s points that attributes are more universal. But
 Eliot did not support literal inclusion of RDFa in the core, and suggested that any such inclusion should be by means of a plugin.

2017-11-14 Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00013.html) from Kris asking how best to fruitfully discuss the whole area of metadata.

2017-11-14: Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00014.html) from Joe Pairman pointing out some gaps in DITA’s metadata support and
 ease of adoption, particularly around controlled values, proper URIs, and inline annotation

2017-11-14 TC meeting (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00017.html) where we discussed the points from the emails up to that point, and
 Eliot suggested some small tweaks to the spec to address them. (I detailed these points and added followup questions in an email on 2017-11-28; see below)

2017-11-15: Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00022.html) from Jim Tivy stressing that we need good use cases, including specifics
 on where topicmeta, indexterm, and subjectScheme are failing us

2017-11-16: Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00023.html) from Joe Pairman agreeing with Jim, emphasizing the need for inclusion,
 and suggesting an expanded version of the notes I was writing to sum up the points so far

2017-11-28: Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201711/msg00034.html) from Joe Pairman: quite a lengthy one that summarized the Linked Data and
 SKOS use cases, looked at two particular aspects of metadata use, dove into sum of the detailed issues, described Eliot’s suggestions, raised some further questions regarding those suggestions, and introduced an important new use case regarding understanding
 DITA semantics in the context of external schemas!

2017-12-04: Email (https://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/dita/201712/msg00008.html) from Joe Pairman summarizing the previous email, linking to a post he wrote
 that might help ease people into the discussion, and suggesting a couple of concrete ways forward.

Cheers!

 

-

Keith Schengili-Roberts

Market Researcher and DITA Evangelist

 

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