Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) 1.0 Schema

1. Introduction (Non-Normative)

[Editor's note: this section will be synchronized with the EARL 1.0 Guide [Guide] as it is being developed.]

The Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) is a format to express test results. Test results include bug reports, test suite evaluations, and conformance claims. The test subject might be a Web site, an authoring tool, a user agent or some other entity. Thus, EARL is flexible. It enables any person, entity, or organization to state test results for any thing tested against any set of criteria.

Stating test results in EARL creates a variety of opportunities. The data can be:

aggregated from different sources
exchanged between tools
used to create customized reports
combined to compare how different test subjects fared on the same test.

A companion document [Guide] to this specification provides more introductory material and explanation of the use cases for EARL.

1.1. Structure of EARL Results (Non-Normative)

EARL statements contain the following types of information:

Context: This can include information about who or what ran the test, the date the test was run, and other information about the test was performed.
Test subject: This can include: Web pages, tools (e.g. accessibility checkers, validators), and user agents
Test result: Did the test subject pass or fail the test? How certain can we be?
Test requirement: What are we evaluating the test subject against? This could be a specification, a set of guidelines, a test from a test suite, or some other test criteria.

Prose examples that demonstrate the above structure:

Example 1: a person carries out a manual evaluation of a Web page against a test requirement.

Context: Mary Thompson claims on the 17th December
Test Subject: A Web page at http://www.example.org/mypage
Test Result: Passed
Test requirement: Checkpoint 1.1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0

Example 2: an evaluation tool carries out automated evaluation of a Web page against a test criteria.

Context: The W3C Markup Validator claims as of 2004-04-14T14:00:04+1000
Test Subject: The XHTML returned from a GET request to the URI http://www.example.org/yourpage
Test Result: Failed
Test requirement: The validity of the XHTML

1.2. Document Conventions and Audience

Editorial Comments (Non-Normative)

There are a niumber of known issues in this draft, that need to be resolved in future drafts. Comments are specifically requested on any of these issues, which are marked as follows:

[Editor's note: there are some items that the working group has discussed but not reached consensus, and others that are known issues that have not yet been discussed]

This subsection will be removed from the final version of the document, and editorial comments will have been resolved.

Audience of this document (Non-Normative)

This document is intended as a brief complete specification of the EARL 1.0 vocabulary. It assumes that the reader is familiar with the ideas of RDF and can read its XML serialisation as bare code. The assumed audience is developers who are implementing EARL in software or processes, or are seeking to understand the ideas, models, or properties and classes used in the EARL vocabulary. Readers who would like a more tutorial introduction to the language, with more explanation of its foreseen use cases, are referred to the EARL 1.0 Guide [Guide]. Readers who wish to understand more about RDF are advised to consider reading a general introduction, or reading the RDF Primer [RDF-PRIMER].

Requirement keywords

The key words must, required, recommended, should, may, and optional are used in accordance with RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

Namespaces

The namespace for EARL as specified in this draft is http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#.

[Editor's note: Versioning terms during the process of developing the vocabulary is an issue the group is working on. It is possible that a new namespace will be used for a final version of the vocabulary]

Where RDF terms are used in their abbreviated form (e.g. Assertion or foaf:Person), if no namespace is provided the term is in the EARL namespace. The following prefixes are used in examples throughout this document:

earl: The EARL namespace http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman# which is described in this document
foaf: The FOAF namespace http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ which is also where the terms are described [FOAF]
dc: The Dublin Core elements namespace http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/ whose terms are described in [DC]
dct: The Dublin Core terms namespace http://purl.org/dc/terms/ described at [DCT]
rdf: The RDF namespace http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns# described in [RDF]
rdfs: The RDF Schema namespace http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema# described in [RDFS]
owl: The OWL namespace http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl# described in [OWL]

1.3. About RDF Vocabularies (Non-Normative)

EARL is defined as an RDF vocabulary. The Resource Description Framework (RDF) [RDF] is a general-purpose language for describing information in a way that is machine-understandable.

EARL is an RDF vocabulary used to make statements about how a resource performed against a test. In common with other RDF it assumes that other vocabularies will be used as appropriate.

For more information on RDF, please refer to the following references:

RDF Primer [RDF-PRIMER]
Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification [RDF]
Why RDF model is different from the XML model [RDF-XML-DIFFS]

2. Core Vocabulary

The EARL 1.0 specification defines an RDF Vocabulary that consists of classes and properties. This section describes the core vocabulary and gives brief examples of its usage. Later sections describe extensibility of EARL 1.0; and conformance to EARL 1.0.

2.1. Assertion

An Assertion is a statement about the results of performing a test. The earl:Assertion class relates the required instances of an Assertor, Test Subject, Test Requirement, and Test Result to a specific Assertion. It is the fundamental unit of an EARL statement or set of statements.

An Assertion must have at least the following properties:

earl:assertedBy: The assertor is a human or software, or groups of these, that determine the result.
earl:subject: The thing that is being tested against some requirement is the subject of the assertion.
earl:requirement: The requirement that is used to test a subject is the test requirement of the assertion.
earl:result: The result of the test - whether the subject passes or fails the test requirement (or there is some other result).

An Assertion may also include the following optional properties:

earl:mode: The mode in which the test was performed - as an automated computer process, by a human, or otherwise.

Example 3: instance of an assertion expressed as an RDF/XML fragment.

<earl:Assertion rdf:ID="#assertion">
  <earl:assertedBy rdf:resource="#assertor" />
  <earl:subject rdf:resource="#subject" />
  <earl:requirement rdf:resource="#requirement" />
  <earl:result rdf:resource="#result" />
</earl:Assertion>

2.2. Assertor

An Assertor determines the results of a test (i.e. an assertor asserts and assertion). An earl:Assertor must belong to one of the following types:

earl:SingleAssertor

There is a single entity responsible for making the Assertion, it must be one of the following types:

foaf:Person: The Assertor is a human being. This uses the FOAF vocabulary term foaf:Person to describe a person. There should be identifying information including a name, and a uniquely identifying property such as email address or preferably an encrypted email address. The properties foaf:name, foaf:mbox and foaf:mbox_sha1sum are defined by FOAF [FOAF].
foaf:Agent: The Assertor is an Agent, as defined in [FOAF]. An Agent is a super class of foaf:Person, foaf:Organisation and foaf:Group which can all be used to describe an Assertor.
earl:Software: The Assertor is a piece of Software, such as a black box testing tool of some sort or an evaluation tool.

earl:CompoundAssertor

The Assertor is a compound group of persons and/or softwares. Each group must have at least one primary Assertor identified by the earl:mainAssertor property, and may, have secondary Assertor identified by the earl:helpAssertor property, as well as optional title and description identified by the [DC] dc:title and dc:description properties respectively.

[Editor's note: should the following note be in this document or rather in the Guide document?]

Note: since the range of both the earl:mainAssertor and the earl:helpAssertor properties of the Compound Assertor reference earl:Assertor classes, these instances can be a Person, Agent, Software, or recursively another Compound Assertor.

Example 4: an Assertor that is a person called Bob B. Bobbington.

<foaf:Person rdf:ID="bob">
  <foaf:name>Bob B. Bobbington</foaf:name>
  <foaf:mbox rdf:resource="mailto:bob@example.org"/>
  <foaf:mbox_sha1sum>1a9daad476f0158b81bc66b7b27b438b4b4c19c0</foaf:mbox_sha1sum>
</foaf:Person>

Example 5: an Assertor that is a piece of software called Cool Tool (see also example 13).

<earl:Software rdf:ID="tool">
  <dc:title xml:lang="en">Cool Tool</dc:title>
  <dc:description xml:lang="en">My favorite tool!</dc:description>
  <foaf:homepage>http://example.org/tools/#cool</foaf:homepage>
  <dct:hasVersion>1.0.3</dct:hasVersion>
</earl:Software>

Example 6: a Compund Assertor of the person from example 4 using the software from example 5.

<earl:compoundAssertor rdf:ID="assertor">
  <dc:title xml:lang="en">Bob using Cool Tool</dc:title>
  <dc:description xml:lang="en">Bob doing semi-automated testing</dc:description>
  <earl:mainAssertor rdf:resource="#bob"/>
  <earl:helpAssertor rdf:resource="#tool"/>
</earl:compoundAssertor>

2.3. Test Subject

The Test Subject is the class of things that have been tested. This class is intentionally generic to serve a wide variety of usages. For more specific use cases, the EARL earl:WebContent or earl:Software classes can be used in place to describe Web Content or Software that is being tested.

The earl:TestSubject class may have any of the following properties:

dc:title: Human readable title for the subject (e.g. "Home Page")
dc:description: Human readable description of the subject (e.g. "Main entry page to the Web site")
dc:date: Date on which the subject was tested (or when it was identified if more appropriate)
dct:hasPart: Relationship to other subjects that are part of this subject
dct:isPartOf: Relationship to other subjects of which this subject is a part of

Example 7: Java applet that is part of a Web application.

<earl:TestSubject rdf:ID="subject">
  <dc:title xml:lang="en">Login Applet</dc:title> 
  <dc:description xml:lang="en">Java applet that is used for system login</dc:description> 
  <dc:date rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#gDate">2005-06-25</dc:date> 
  <dct:isPartOf rdf:resource="http://example.org/"/> 
</earl:TestSubject>

2.4. Test Requirement

A Test Requirement is a test - usually one that can be passed or failed. This includes things such as validation requirements, code test cases, checkpoints from guidelines such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 [WCAG10], or others. These should be identified with a URI using the Dublin Core dc:identifier property.

A Test Requirement may be a single test, or may be a part of a larger compound test suite. These relations may be described using Dublin Core's dct:hasPart or dct:isPartOf properties. Additionally, a title or description for the test requirement may be included by using the Dublin Core dc:title or dc:description properties.

[Editor's note: The earl:TestRequirement class is included for convenience, since it allows various useful properties to be described in simple standard RDF. The working group will deprecate this class if they find an appropriate replacement from a language designed for describing test cases, something which is beyond the scope of the current specification.]

Example 8: instance of a test requirement that is described with a title and its relationship to a test suite.

<earl:TestRequirement rdf:ID="requirement">
  <dc:title xml:lang="en">HTML Test 282</dc:title>
  <dc:description xml:lang="en">Test 282 of the HTML test suite</dc:title>
  <dct:isPartOf rdf:resource="http://example.org/tests/html/"/>
  <dct:hasPart rdf:resource="http://example.org/tests/html/#617"/>
  <dc:identifier>http://example.org/tests/html/#282</dc:identifier>
</earl:TestRequirement>

2.5. Test Mode

The (optional) Test Mode information is used to simplify some commonly used querries on how the testing was carried out. When provided, it must reflect the information provided by the Assertor, and it must be exactly one of the following pre-defined values (or subclasses of them):

earl:manual: Where the test was performed based on a person's judgement. This includes the case where that judgement was aided through the use of a tool, although this should be additionally noted through the earl:compoundAssertor class of the Assertor.
earl:automatic: Where a computer program or similar has done an automated test and generated a result without human assistance.
earl:semiauto: Where a computer program or similar was primarily responsible for generating a result, even if with some human assistance. This should be additionally noted through the earl:compoundAssertor class of the Assertor.
earl:mixed: Where there is no detailed information about the test mode available. This includes when testing is carried out by organizations or groups of assertors, and the exact testing process is not disclosed.
earl:heuristic: This property was designed to cover assertions which are made by inference, for example based on several existing test results.

Example 9: the assertion from example 3 was carried out in semi-automatic mode.

<earl:Assertion rdf:about="#assertion">
  <earl:mode rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#semiauto"/> 
</earl:Assertion>

2.6. Test Result

The actual result of the test. It includes both machine-readable values as well as human-readable description of the results (typically error messages).

A Test Result must have exactly one of the following properties:

earl:validity: The Validity Level is a machine-readable value that describes the result.

A Test Result should include the following properties:

dc:title: A short title for the result, for example the error code generated by an evaluation tool.
dc:description: A human-readable text or markup (for example HTML included as an XML Literal), and should therefore include an identification for the natural language.

A Test Result may also include the following properties:

earl:confidence: The Confidence Level is an application-specific value to describe the accuracy of the result. This is especially useful for results based on heuristics.
earl:instance: Each Instance Location can contain several types of pointers to locate the occurence of the result within the Test Subject. A Test Result may contain several instances of this class to describe any number of occurences; [Editor's note: this property (and class) are still under active discussion and development by the working group. The working group has not yet reached consensus on these terms.]

Example 10: A test result with a validity of fail and a description of the problem in English, and encoded in XHTML format.

<earl:result rdf:ID="result">
  <earl:validity rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#fail"/>
  <dc:title xml:lang="en">Invalid Markup (code #353)</dc:title>
  <dc:description rdf:parseType="Literal" xml:lang="en">
    <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
      <p>The <code>table</code> element is not allowed to appear
        inside a <code>p</code> element</p>
    </div>
  </dc:description>
</earl:result>

2.6.1. Validity Level

Outcome of a test. The Validity Level must be one of the following pre-defined values (or subclasses of them):

earl:pass: An assertor claims a test passed successfully.
earl:fail: The Test Subject did not meet the criteria defined by the Test Requirement.
earl:cannotTell: An Assertor can not tell for sure what the outcome of the test is. Usually this happens when an automated test requires human judgement to make a definite decision.
earl:notApplicable: The Test Requirement is not applicable to the given Test Subject.
earl:notTested: Test has not been carried out. This is useful for reporting as well as for other uses of progress monitoring.

2.6.2. Confidence Level

Confidence in the result by an Assertor. This may be used where a tool wants to assert that it has different levels of confidence about two possible results (for example low confidence that a test has been passed, but also high confidence that it is not applicable). The values of the confidence level should be defined either as RDF values, or using a datatype, in order to allow others to work interoperably with them.

Example 11: The result from example 10 has a confidence level of 87 (the interpretation of this value is application specific)

<earl:result rdf:about="#result">
  <earl:confidence rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#int">87</earl:confidence>
</earl:result>

2.6.3. Instance Location

[Editor's note: methods for pointing to specific instances of a result within a test subject are currently under active discussion and development by the working group. The working group has not yet reached consensus on this class.]

Example 12: To be developed.

2.7. Software Tool

A piece of software such as an authoring tool, browser, or evaluation tool. Software should have a title using the Dublin Core property dc:title; and may have descriptions, version information, and a home page using the Dublin Core terms dc:description, dct:hasVersion, as well as the FOAF term foaf:homepage.

While the software class is often used to describe evaluation tool assertors, a software could also be a Test Subject (for example to test compliance of an authoring tool to the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines). In this case, it inherits the optional properties dc:date, dct:isPartOf and dct:hasPart from the Test Subject class.

Example 13: The software which was an Assertor in example 5 is now a Test Subject.

<earl:Software rdf:about="#tool">
  <dc:date rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#gDate">2005-06-25</dc:date> 
  <dct:isPartOf rdf:resource="http://example.org/tools/"/>
  <dct:hasPart rdf:resource="http://example.org/tools/cool/#module-1"/>
</earl:Software>

2.8. Web Content

Information on the World Wide Web. This should include enough information to identify the content actually tested, taking account of content type and language negotiation and similar factors that can change the content actually served. This class is intended to be used as a test subject but can be reused for other purposes (outside EARL) as well. The Web content class has the following properties:

dc:format: Format of the Web resource. For example "text/HTML", "image/PNG" or other mime types that are returned from the Web server.
dc:location: The URL or other types of pointers that identify an address for the resource.; [Editor's note: this term will be replaced in the next version of this document. The purpose of the term will however remain unchanged.]
earl:httpRequest: HTTP request sent by the client to the server in order to initiate a response
earl:httpResponse: HTTP response (except the actual payload of the date) sent by the server to the client

Note: an instance of the Web Content class may include several request/response sequences to document the content and language negotiation that took place before the content was finally sent.

[Editor's note: the request/response properties of this class are intended to make use of HTTP vocabulary in RDF that will be published in a separate document.]

Appendix A: EARL 1.0 Schema in RDF/XML

[Editor's note: need to make a schema available at the namespace URI, which includes OWL information on deprecated terms]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding='UTF-8'?>
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
         xmlns:earl="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#"
         xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#"
         xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
         xmlns:foaf="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/"
         xmlns:owl="http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#">

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">An assertion</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Parent node that contains all parts of an assertion</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Restriction>
        <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#assertedBy"/>
        <owl:minCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:minCardinality>
      </owl:Restriction>
      <owl:Restriction>
        <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#subject"/>
        <owl:minCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:minCardinality>
      </owl:Restriction>
      <owl:Restriction>
        <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#requirement"/>
        <owl:minCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:minCardinality>
      </owl:Restriction>
      <owl:Restriction>
        <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#result"/>
        <owl:minCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:minCardinality>
      </owl:Restriction>
    </rdfs:subClassOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#assertedBy">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Asserted By</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertor"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#subject">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Has Subject</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestSubject"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#requirement">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Has Requirement</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestRequirement"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#result">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Has Result</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestResult"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#mode">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Has Mode</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestMode"/>
  </rdf:Property>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertor">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Assertor</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Persons or evaluation tools that claim assertions</rdfs:comment>
    <owl:oneOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#SingleAssertor"/>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#CompoundAssertor"/>
    </owl:oneOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#SingleAssertor">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Single Assertor</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">One person or evaluation tool that claims assertions</rdfs:comment>
    <owl:oneOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Thing rdf:type="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Software"/>
      <owl:Thing rdf:type="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Person">
      <owl:Thing rdf:type="http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Agent">
      </owl:Thing>
    </owl:oneOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#CompoundAssertor">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Compound Assertor</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Group of persons or evaluation tools that claim assertions</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Restriction>
        <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#mainAssertor"/>
        <owl:minCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:minCardinality>
      </owl:Restriction>
    </rdfs:subClassOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#mainAssertor">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Main Assertor</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Assertor mainly responsible for determining assertion result</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#CompoundAssertor"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertor"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#helpAssertor">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Help Assertor</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Assertor assisting to determine assertion result</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#CompoundAssertor"/>
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertor"/>
  </rdf:Property>
	
  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestSubject">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Test Subject</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Subject of the assertion</rdfs:comment>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestRequirement">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Test Requirement</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A requirement against which subjects are tested</rdfs:comment>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestMode">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Test Mode</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Mode in which tests were conducted</rdfs:comment>
    <owl:oneOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#manual">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Manual</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test was performed by a human only</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#automatic">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Automatic</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test was performed by a tool only</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#semiauto">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Semi-Automatic</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test was performed primarily by a tool, and human assistance</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#mixed">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Mixed</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test was performed by a combination of persons and tools</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#heuristic">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Heuristic</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Result was derived from other results</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
    </owl:oneOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestResult">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Test Result</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Result from conducting test cases on subjects</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Restriction>
        <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#validity"/>
        <owl:minCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:minCardinality>
        <owl:maxCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:maxCardinality>
      </owl:Restriction>
    </rdfs:subClassOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#validity">   
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Has Validity</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestResult"/> 
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#ValidityLevel"/> 
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#confidence">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Has Confidence</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#TestResult"/> 
    <rdfs:range rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#ConfidenceLevel"/> 
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#instance">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Has Instance</rdfs:label>
  </rdf:Property>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#ValidityLevel">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Validity Level</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Nominal value of the result</rdfs:comment>
    <owl:oneOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#pass">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Pass</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test passed</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#fail">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Fail</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test failed</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#cannotTell">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Can Not Tell</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Outcome of the test is uncertain</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#notApplicable">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Not Applicable</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test is not applicable to the subject</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#notTested">
        <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Not Tested</rdfs:label>
        <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Test has not been carried out</rdfs:comment>
      </owl:Thing>
    </owl:oneOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#ConfidenceLevel">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Confidence Level</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Level of confidence in the given result</rdfs:comment>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Software">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Software Tool</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">A tool that can perform tests or be the subject of testing</rdfs:comment>
    <rdfs:subClassOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Restriction>
        <owl:onProperty rdf:resource="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title"/>
        <owl:minCardinality rdf:datatype="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#nonNegativeInteger">1</owl:minCardinality>
      </owl:Restriction>
    </rdfs:subClassOf>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdfs:Class rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#WebContent">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Web Content</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:comment xml:lang="en">Subjects that are available on the Web</rdfs:comment>
  </rdfs:Class>

  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#httpRequest">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">With HTTP Request</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#WebContent"/> 
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#httpResponse">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">With HTTP Response</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#WebContent"/> 
  </rdf:Property>

  <!-- Deprecated Terms -->
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#evidence">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">evidence</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion"/>
  </rdf:Property>
  <rdf:Property rdf:about="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#methodology">
    <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">methodology</rdfs:label>
    <rdfs:domain rdf:resource="http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/EARL/nmg-strawman#Assertion"/>
  </rdf:Property>

  <!-- Replaced Terms -->
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="#testCase">
    <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="#requirement" />
  </rdf:Description>
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="#Testcase">
    <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="#TestRequirement" />
  </rdf:Description>
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="#singleAssertor">
    <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="#SingleAssertor" />
  </rdf:Description>
  <rdf:Description rdf:about="#compoundAssertor">
    <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="#CompoundAssertor" />
  </rdf:Description>

</rdf:RDF>

Classes in the EARL namespace
Name	Label	Allowable types	required properties	recommended properties	optional properties
`earl:Assertion`	Assertion		`earl:assertedBy` `earl:subject` `earl:requirement` `earl:result`		`earl:mode`
`earl:Assertor`	Assertor	`earl:SingleAssertor` `earl:CompoundAssertor`
`earl:SingleAssertor`	Single Assertor	`foaf:Person` `earl:Software` `foaf:Agent`
`earl:CompoundAssertor`	Compound Assertor		`earl:mainAssertor`		`dc:title` `dc:description` `earl:helpAssertor`
`earl:TestSubject`	Test Subject	`earl:WebContent` `earl:Software`			`dc:title` `dc:description` `dc:date` `dct:hasPart` `dct:isPartOf`
`earl:TestRequirement`	Test Requirement			`dc:identifier`	`dc:title` `dc:description` `dct:hasPart` `dct:isPartOf`
`earl:TestMode`	Test mode	`earl:manual` `earl:automatic` `earl:semiauto` `earl:mixed` `earl:heuristic`
`earl:TestResult`	Test Result		`earl:validity`	`dc:title` `dc:description`	`earl:confidence` `earl:instance`
`earl:ValidityLevel`	Validity Level	`earl:pass` `earl:fail` `earl:cannotTell` `earl:notApplicable` `earl:notTested`
`earl:ConfidenceLevel`	Confidence Level
`earl:Software`	Software Tool			`dc:title`	`dct:hasVersion` `dc:description` `foaf:homepage`
`earl:WebContent`	Web Content			`dc:location` [Editor's note: this term will be replaced by another.]	`dc:format` `earl:httpRequest` `earl:httpResponse`

Properties in the EARL namespace
Name	Label	Domain	Range
`earl:assertedBy`	Asserted By	`earl:Assertion`	`earl:Assertor`
`earl:subject`	Has Subject	`earl:Assertion`	`earl:TestSubject`
`earl:requirement`	Has Requirement	`earl:Assertion`	`earl:TestRequirement`
`earl:result`	Has Result	`earl:Assertion`	`earl:TestResult`
`earl:mode`	Has Mode	`earl:Assertion`	`earl:TestMode`
`earl:mainAssertor`	Main Assertor	`earl:CompoundAssertor`	`earl:Assertor`
`earl:helpAssertor`	Help Assertor	`earl:CompoundAssertor`	`earl:Assertor`
`earl:validity`	Has Validity	`earl:TestResult`	`earl:ValidityLevel`
`earl:confidence`	Has Confidence	`earl:TestResult`	`earl:ConfidenceLevel`
`earl:instance`	Has Instance	[Editors' note: to be specified.]	[Editors' note: to be specified.]
`earl:httpRequest`	With HTTP Request	`earl:WebContent`	[Editors' note: to be specified.]
`earl:httpResponse`	With HTTP Response	`earl:WebContent`	[Editors' note: to be specified.]

Values in the EARL namespace
Name	Label	Used In
`earl:manual`	Manual	`earl:TestMode`
`earl:automatic`	Automatic	`earl:TestMode`
`earl:semiauto`	Semi-Automatic	`earl:TestMode`
`earl:mixed`	Mixed	`earl:TestMode`
`earl:heuristic`	Heuristic	`earl:TestMode`
`earl:pass`	Pass	`earl:ValidityLevel`
`earl:fail`	Fail	`earl:ValidityLevel`
`earl:notTested`	Not tested	`earl:ValidityLevel`
`earl:cannotTell`	Cannot tell	`earl:ValidityLevel`
`earl:notApplicable`	Not Applicable	`earl:ValidityLevel`

Appendix C: Document Changes (Non-Normative)

This section records current changes and future plans for changes as the the working draft matures to Recommendation level.

Difference to the previous published Working Draft

This section describes differences between this draft and the EARL 1.0 Schema draft of 9 September 2005.

The former Appendix B: EARL 1.0 Schema in N3 has been removed.
Redundant constraints on optional properties have been removed from the schema.
Added a subsection on the expected audience of this document.
Made namespace and use of RFC 2119 terms normative.
earl:requirement and earl:TestRequirement have replaced earl:testCase and earl:Testcase.
Added earl:mixed and earl:semiauto values for the earl:TestMode class.
Made the earl:mode property of earl:Assertion optional.
Made the dc:date property of earl:TestSubject optional.
Made the dc:title property of earl:Software recommended.
Removed high, medium and low values of earl:confidence.
Added foaf:Agent to the list of allowable Assertor types.
Replaced dc:location with dc:identifier in earl:TestRequirement and with foaf:homepage in earl:Software.
Added earl:instance as a place holder for the upcoming earl:InstanceLocation class.
Added table column for recommended properties in the terms section.
Several typographical edits including naming of the property and class labels, checking and optimizing the examples, as well as rewording of several sections.

Difference to the first published Working Draft

This section describes the changes made since the EARL 1.0 draft of 12 December 2002.

Document split into a specification (this document) and a companion document. Most content stripped out of specification document, and new issues under discussion noted.
Schema presented without the use of XML entities.
Typographical errors in schema fixed, so it validates.
Re-ordering of the Schema and document. Instead of being organised as a list of classes, then properties, then instance classes, the document and the schema are both organised around the key classes as the framework for defining their use.
Redundant (rdf:Resource) and incorrect (rdfs:Resource) sub-class declarations removed.
Schema labels given xml:lang attributes as appropriate.
Labels converted to grammatical english (from camelCaseAlmostWords).
Schema encoded in default UTF-8.
Removed earl:Platform class.
Replaced earl:message, earl:format, earl:Person, earl:name, earl:email, and earl:contactInfo with equivalent terms from the Dublin Core and FOAF vocabularies.
Added earl:Software class to replace the deprecated earl:Tool and earl:UserAgent classes. It can be used to decribe a assertor tools or test subjects.
Added earl:SingleAssertor, earl:CompoundAssertor, earl:mainAssertor, and earl:helpAssertor to better describe different kinds of assertors.
Added earl:WebContent to replace the deprecated earl:ReprOf class.
Added earl:httpRequest and earl:httpResponse properties in earl:WebContent class to describe the request/response sequences that were exchanged.

New terms

New terms have been introduced to the vocabulary, sometimes as replacements for deprecated terms that existed in earlier drafts, sometimes to introduce new funtionality

Terms added since the previous published Working Draft

earl:mixed and earl:semiauto: These values extend the range of allowed values of the test earl:TestMode.
earl:requirement and earl:TestRequirement: Replace earl:testCase and earl:Testcase respectively.
earl:instance: This property is part of the earl:InstanceLocation class which will be added in later drafts.

Terms added since the first published Working Draft

earl:Software: This class replaces the deprecated earl:Tool. It can be used to decribe a assertor tools or test subjects.
earl:SingleAssertor, earl:CompoundAssertor: These classes are derivatives of an Assertor to help describe complex groups of person and/or tool evaluators.
earl:mainAssertor, earl:helpAssertor: These properties of a compound assertor can be used to describe the specific roles of evaluators within a group.
earl:httpRequest, earl:httpResponse: These are placeholder properties for describing WebContent (or a Delivery Unit on the Web).

Deprecated terms

A number of terms that existed in earlier drafts have been deprecated, either in favour of terms from existing widely-used vocabularies, or because their use is somehow problematic. While this deprecation is provisional, no RDF has been published formally noting them as deprecated (for example through OWL). A quick guide to terms that have been provisionally deprecated:

earl:evidence: This was intended to provide a method for describing the justification used to infer a claim based on other claims. It has been deprecated for now.
earl:methodology: This was intended to provide a link for what method was used for a particular test. It has been deprecated as unnecessary.
high, medium and earl:low: These values for the earl:confidence property were deprecated in favour of authors defining their usage in a way that encourages interoperability.
earl:reprOf: This term was deprecated in favour of a more comprehensive approach to describing Web content.
earl:testCase: This property was replaced by the earl:requirement property.
earl:Testcase: This class was replaced by the earl:TestRequirement class.
earl:UserAgent, earl:Tool: These terms were deprecated in favour of the more generic earl:Software class.
earl:platform: This term was deprecated as it did not seem to be widely accepted and implemented.
earl:message, earl:format: These terms were deprecated in favour of the Dublin Core terms dc:description and dc:format.
earl:Person, earl:name, earl:email, earl:contactInfo: These terms were deprecated in favour of equivalent terms from the FOAF vocabulary.

Working group change plans

The working group is considering several open issues which would lead to extending the current vocabulary before it reaches recommendation. As well as issues noted in the draft, the following issues are under active consideration:

Evidence

A mechanism to provide further evidence used to make a claim. The working group has included the evidence property but has not yet determined the most useful model for the list of statements used in evidence of an inferred result.

Location

Within Web content, for the use case of testing accessibility, it is very valuable to point to the location(s) that cause the test to pass or fail. This is also true of software interfaces and various other kinds of subject. The working group has agreed in principle to include a mechanism for recording this information in an EARL report, but has not yet developed or found the necessary terms.

HTTP transaction information

There are currently placeholder properties httpRequest and httpResponse for HTTP transaction information. The group expects to develop these further, either themselves or with an existing vocabulary. An extensive amount of work has been done on such vocabularies, and this material couldd be included as soon as the next draft of this specification.

Confidence

This is under review by the working group. The current draft requires that developers who use this property provide some means of identifying the way its values are determined in order to allow interoperable use of those values.

Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) 1.0 Schema

Appendices

1. Introduction (Non-Normative)

1.1. Structure of EARL Results (Non-Normative)

Editorial Comments (Non-Normative)

Audience of this document (Non-Normative)

1.3. About RDF Vocabularies (Non-Normative)

Appendix B: EARL 1.0 Terms (Non-Normative)

Appendix C: Document Changes (Non-Normative)

Difference to the first published Working Draft

Terms added since the previous published Working Draft

Terms added since the first published Working Draft

Appendix E: References (Non-Normative)

Appendix F: Contributors(Non-Normative)

Contributors to this and/or previous Working Drafts