Group charter

This document forms the initial charter of the Best Practices for Multilingual Linked (Open) Data (BP-MLOD) community Group (http://www.w3.org/community/bpmlod/). The group has been formed to try and gather a common and community driven approach to creating multilingual linked open data sets. The group was formed as the result of a number of conferences, workshops and meetings. The last being Multilingual Web Rome, where this group was formed.

Purpose:

The working group is tasked with gathering input from the multilingual web community regarding the creation of Linked (open) data sets in multiple languages, or linking existing multilingual data sets. The aim of the group is to publish a set of common best practices, with the remit of linking multilingual linked (open) data sets. In the first instance the group aims to simply document the skeleton best practices discussion points and approaches to documenting such best practices. Once this is done, with community engagement the group will re-write its charter, in line with the communities goals.

Approach:

With three co-chairs the group aims to focus on gathering and publishing the views of the community via a collaborative call, review and revision process. The strength of the group will be measured via the input of its members into the published community groups output. The co-chairs are in place to guide the process of gathering, reviewing and guiding the publishing of the best practices. The process for collecting and publishing the best practices will follow six simple steps:

First, a classification will be made (by the Co-Chairs) of the topics to be treated by the community. E.g., naming, URIs vs IRIs, linking, etc. http://www.w3.org/community/bpmlod/wiki/Topic_classification
Then, we will make a call for use cases, additional topics, trying to identify which topics are involved in each use case. E.g., ontology localisation, publication of MLOD from data silos, using MLOD in translation workflows, etc.
Next, we will organise dedicated telcos to discuss best practises for each of the topics, in the context of the identified use cases.
Finally, when we consider that the discussion about a topic is mature and some consensus is reached we will document it in a report to be published via the community group page.

Steps 2 through 4 may occur multiple times, as required by the review process with the focus being publishing the initial skeleton (by late Autumn/Fall 2013) of the report relating to the publishing of multilingual linked (open) data sets or linking existing data sets.

Key Milestones:

M1 - Kick-off meeting (June 2013)
M2 - First draft of the report with topic selection and initial use cases (October 2013)
M3 - Final draft of the report with final use cases and best practises (March 2014)

Communication Mechanism:

The group will communicate via the public-bpmlod@w3.org mailing list, with calls for input, consensus and draft reports.
All documentation will be recorded on the groups wiki page http://www.w3.org/community/bpmlod/wiki/Main_Page
Skype (or GoToMeeting) will be used to host teleconferences.
During the meeting Google docs will be used for meeting minutes and action points, these will be recorded in the wiki once the meeting is completed.

Alignment with other projects:

It is envisaged that the community group will align with relevant EU and nationally funded research projects and support actions in the areas of linguistics, language data, linked open data, localisation and translation. The group aims to focus key researchers from across the area of multilingual linked open data in the process gathering and recording best practices.

Next Steps:

Doodle poll only for the June Telco (19th or 20th of June) Please mark your availability here: (http://www.doodle.com/cwwyi3icz4qyr7e4)
Discussion will be focused around the topic classification created by the co-chairs and hosted here (http://www.w3.org/community/bpmlod/wiki/Topic_classification).
Following the telco an open call for use-cases, additional topics will be conducted (point 2 of the Approach section of this charter).