Status: I've been asked now about 10+ times to provide some additional detail, clarification, and/or background to a RDF workflow example I discussed in my Semantic Web Talk at the Semantic Web Workshop. This Document is an early attempt to address these requests. This document is a very early draft and is not complete. Standard disclaimers apply $Id: readme.html,v 1.5 2001/08/14 14:25:18 em Exp $
The accurate modeling of W3C Process and Workflow (like any dynamic organization) is extremely difficult. These obstacles, however, do not free us from the inevitable requirement of being more efficient. Rather than spend a tremendous amount of time an energy in modeling a very complex ever-changing process, some very simple steps can be introduced that would allow this process to be managed in a more flexible, organic, distributed manner. Data intended for a particular purpose rarely remains that way. Data that is represented in standard ways for supporting recombination, reintergration and reuse ultimately makes data more valuable. Tools and technologies that codify these standards and for this reusability make for more effective means of managing data. Organization that support these technologies and standards in their day to day process as such are ultimately more flexible and efficient.
This document outlines a possible way of support these ideas through the use of standards supported by W3C. More specifically, RDF for supporting a means for describing people and entities associated with a more formalized representation of various W3C events.
The most important part of W3C is the working groups. One of the most important deliverable from any working groups are documents. Indication from a working group that a document has reached a particular status level (Working Draft) for review is an important step in the document life-cycle. Informally, this takes place by the chair of a particular working group making an announcement on some mailing list. These announcements are intended for humans reading the list and have no identifiable structure. Often times Currently there are no formal means for this announcement.
W3C Team requirement to support the automatic creation, maintenance of W3C Technical Reports Page.
Solution: W3C Working Group Chairs make assertions that a document is at a particular status by submitting announcement to list.
An excerpt from RDF/N3 file announce.n3 follows:
<> sv:announces <http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlbase/>. <http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlbase/> a sv:TRDocument; sv:title "XML Base"; sv:date "2001-07-09"; sv:editor [ contact:fullName "Jonathan Marsh"; contact:mailbox <mailto:jmarsh@microsoft.com>; ]; sv:status [ rdfs:label "Working Draft"; sv:level sv:Recommendation; ]; sv:of [ a org:WorkingGroup; contact:mailbox <mailto:w3c-xml-linking-wg@w3.org>; ].
Which when represented graphically yeilds:
An excerpt from RDF/N3 file org.n3 follows:
[ a org:Activity;
org:name "Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity";
contact:homePage <http://www.w3.org/XML/Activity>;
org:includes [
a org:WorkingGroup;
org:name "XML Linking WG";
contact:homePage <http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/Linking>;
contact:mailbox <mailto:w3c-xml-linking-wg@w3.org>
]
].
Which when merged with announce.n3 yeilds:
And in each working group, the chairs have a list of working group members. An excerpt from this list shown in RDF/N3 might be as follows contacts.n3 follows:
@prefix : <#>.
@prefix contact: <http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/pim/contact#>.
@prefix org: <http://www.w3.org/2001/04/roadmap/org#>.
@prefix dc: <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/>.
<#xmllinking> a org:WorkingGroup; contact:mailbox <mailto:w3c-xml-linking-wg@w3.org>.
[ a contact:Person;
contact:fullName "Jonathan Marsh";
contact:mailbox <mailto:jmarsh@microsoft.com>;
contact:company <http://www.w3.org/Members/AC#Microsoft>;
org:member <#xmllinking> ].
Which when merged with the Announcement and Org information yeilds:
The Comm team (or accounting?) maintain various lists of W3C Members. An excerpt from this list shown in RDF/N3 might be as follows members.n3 follows:
@prefix contact: <http://www.w3.org/2000/10/swap/pim/contact#>.
@prefix org: <http://www.w3.org/2001/04/roadmap/org#>.
<http://www.w3.org/Members/AC#W3C> a org:Consortia;
contact:fullName "W3C";
contact:homePage <http://www.w3.org>.
<http://www.w3.org/Members/AC#Microsoft> a contact:Company;
contact:fullName "Microsoft Corporation";
contact:homePage <http://microsoft.com>;
org:member <http://www.w3.org/Members/AC#W3C>.
Which when merged with the Announcement, Org and Contacts information yeilds:
