HCLSIG BioRDF Subgroup/Tasks/URI Best Practices/Versioning

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URI Practices main page · Recommendations · Versioning · Metadata · Use Cases · Issues

Versioning

Case Studies (?)

  • Content Versioning by an Authority - The chain of versions is one metadata arm of the URI, and the most recent version is assumed for the URI; if versioning is appended to the URI (e.g. LSID:2.5), that specific URI version is retrieved. It has the version metadata arm as well.

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Common PURL-based Approach to RDF Vocabularies

The common PURL.org scenario with URLs for RDF vocabularies is to have an authoritative URL which identifies the vocabulary unambigiously. A URL resolution service redirects to the 'current' version. Within the RDF resolved there are relationships expressed (using special vocabulary terms with explicit semantics) between the current version and previous versions. Essentially, every version has a different identifier, and the most current version is identified with the authoritative URL.

(JonathanRees doesn't understand the preceding paragraph)

Technology Discussion

  • "Versioning" is a vague term; what does it mean operationally?
  • What are the actual semantic web use cases (as opposed to solutions or rhetoric) that go under this heading?
  • What RDF relations (properties) connect versions of a versioned resource set to one another?
  • How are versions like/unlike representations (in the sense of AWWW)?

Social Discussion

  • What is worth versioning?
    • Database records (e.g. an individual Medline record)?
    • Databases (e.g. the 2007 baseline of Medline)?
    • Ontologies?
  • What is immutable (more precisely, how do we express in RDF that an information resource isn't going to change)?
  • Should data and metadata be treated differently? (N.b. there is disagreement over LSID's position that metadata is unversioned.)