WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgProposalsArchive

From W3C Wiki


This is an archived snapshot of WebSchemas/SchemaDotOrgProposalsArchive. Active development has moved to Github.

See also the release history page at schema.org.

2011-2014 Proposals for Schema.org

  • Since 2014 schema.org uses Github for active development, although email discussion remains in the WebSchemas public-vocabs list.
  • History: 2012-13 draft schema files were hosted in W3C's Mercurial repository.
  • From 2014, schema.org runs on opensource software, and uses Git(hub) for schema collaboration. Examples and schemas are in the data/ area of the repository.

From 2011-2014 this page collected public proposals for schema.org vocabulary extensions and improvements.

We are winding down the W3C's issue tracker for schema.org issues, except for matters of coordination with other vocabularies and W3C specifications.

Schema.org public discussions happen via the public-vocabs@w3.org W3C mailing list for discussions.

Sometimes proposals evolve from offlist and face-to-face discussions; when possible, advance warning of 'expected' or possible proposals can be indicated here (announced 24 Feb 2012).

Schema.org proposals can take any form during discussions, but ultimately they should take the form of HTML+RDFa schema definitions; some real examples are in the data/ area of the schema.org repository. See Github pages for more details.

Note: When preparing a proposal, we need to know for each type and property, its name and description, alongside examples of usage. There are lots of different ways in which these can be prepared: wiki pages, text files, spreadsheets, PDFs etc. Do note that each property is considered as a global entity, ie. a property called 'foo' gets just one description - you can't give different descriptions for its use with the "Person" type, versus its use with the CreativeWork type. Ideally, develop a machine-readable proposal and test it using the software on Github.

To search just these proposals, the issue tracker and schema.org-related mailing lists, try a this custom search.


2014 Proposals and Discussion

These proposals are working towards inclusion in schema.org.

Topic Status Summary Vocab Comments
Measurement Proposal Introduce the concept of a Measurement to describe the relationship between a value and a thing, as in sports statistics. See wiki page
Change domain of associatedMedia to Thing Proposal Change the domain of http://schema.org/associatedMedia to http://schema.org/Thing Enables many more types to associate contained or complementary media content, beyond CreativeWork. Discussion at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-vocabs/2014May/0224.html
Property-Value Pairs Proposal Adding support for arbitrary property-value pairs. Useful for product features and proprietary features of places. One new type http://schema.org/PropertyValue, two new properties for this type (unitText, propertyID), changes to domain and range for unitCode, value, minValue, maxValue, and valueReference properties; one new property additionalProperty for http://schema.org/Place OR http://schema.org/Product. Mirrors an upcoming feature in GoodRelations.
Vehicles: Cars, Bikes, Boats Proposal Adding support for vehicle features for cars, bikes, boats, and other vehicles for sales and rental. See proposal for details.
Orders Schema update Proposal Proposal to add order line and parcel delivery support in the Orders Schema. One new Type: OrderItem, and added properties for one existent Type: Order
social Account property Proposal Indicates a corresponding profile page for an account on a socially-oriented Web site. One new property: socialAccount
Audiobook Proposal Proposal for new Audiobook Type and abridged property for Book. Audiobook subtype of Book and of AudioObject, adds readBy property
Collection Proposal Proposal for new Collection Type and part properties for CreativeWork. Collection subtype of CreativeWork hasPart & isPartOf properties for CreativeWork
Accessibility (part 2) Discussion Extension for describing accessibility properties of a CreativeWork. Additional work to add accessMode, hasAdapation, isAdaptationof that were not covered in 1.0 Accessibility work.
Add Quotation type Proposal Add one type, 'QuotationSchema', a kind of CreativeWork, alongside some supporting properties. Quotation, spokenByCharacter, incorrectlyAttributedTo, aboutEvent, fromEvent, addressee. Several other requirements are addressed by re-use of existing properties. Debate about whether incorrectlyAttributedTo is worthwhile. Some details to finalise.
Workers Union type Accepted This proposal adds a single new type, WorkersUnion, addressing issue 17 in the WebSchemas tracker. "A Workers Union (...) is an organization that promotes the interests of its worker members by collectively bargaining with management, organizing, and political lobbying."" One type, see draft schema.
Sports Proposal The purpose of this proposal is to introduce an expanded vocabulary for describing sports information within schema.org. Key concepts include Statistics, Roles, Ordered Events, Competitions and Competition Results. See proposal for full set of vocabulary updates. V3 posted 2014.05.09
Comics and Serials Discussing Proposals Proposal from Marvel (see examples). Adds PeriodicalSeries (under Intangible(?)), PeriodicalIssue (under CreativeWork), Comic Issue (under PeriodicalIssue), GraphicNovel (under Book). Approx 6-9 properties for each of these classes. Generally well received and specified, but some detailed discussion re fine-grain detail of comics (imprint, page count etc.). Can those properties be shared with Book/numberOfPages, or ScholarlyArticle? Should PeriodicalSeries be intangible?
Historical Data proposal Proposal The historical-data.org site proposes some extensions to schema.org to address historical and genealogical (family history) scenarios. Adds HistoricalRecord, HistoricalEvent (subclass of Event), overrides attendees, subEvents, superEvent to point to HistoricalEvent. There is an associated implementation, github repository, and blog.
Biological Databases Proposal A schema extension for describing biological databases, Sagace. Adds a class 'BiologicalDatabaseEntry' as a kind of CreativeWork, introducing 'entryID', 'isEntryOf', 'taxonID'. Adds 'BiologicalDatabase' also subclass of CreativeWork, with no special properties. Both also use 'breadcrumb' from WebPage. Others have also mentioned interest in adding some notion of species.
Breadcrumbs Proposal A proposal resolving current problems handling breadcrumbs. Adds Breadcrumb type with child property and supposes to use this class on breadcrumb property of a WebPage. An important schema, but needs attention. See discussion on using literal values.
Discussion Proposal A proposal extending schema.org for describing online discussion forums and message boards. Adds attachmentURL, contributorType, discussionState, interestedUsers, postCount, postType, votedHelpful. Addition candidate
Innovation Proposal A proposal extending schema.org for describing Innovation and related concepts. Discussion found here: [1] Covers concepts and terms such as Need, Benefit, Usage, Disruption, Innovator, Innovation, Embodiment, to name a few. See [2] for complete list of terms. Addition candidate
dissolutionDate Proposal Add a dissolutionDate property to Organization.
Lodging Extensions Proposal A proposal for extending LodgingBusiness. Specification is here http://thematix.com/ontologies/travel/lodging/ Adds Amenity, BusinessService, Feature, GuestRoomAmenity, LodgingBusinessAmenity, LodgingBusinessService, RentalOffer, RentalRate, Room, RoomType and Service. In addition to the examples given in the cited website, examples can be seen at http://www.regencyhotelmiami.com/ and http://hiltonvb.com and at Super8 hotel description pages, e.g., http://www.super8.com/hotels/alberta/fort-mcmurray/super-8-fort-mcmurray/hotel-overview.
Web Observatory Proposal Proposed extensions to schema.org for describing portals used for [Science] collaboration including projects, datasets and tools used to study the Web. Includes vocabularies for [Observatory], [Observatory Project], [Observatory Dataset], and [Observatory Tool] A reference implementation of a web observatory portal demonstrating the user of each Web Observatory vocabulary can be found at the [World Constellation Web Observatory Portal]
...
Proposal name How far along Summary of contribution. Overview of new terms Comments on status, particularly regarding integration, overlaps and open issues.

Brainstorming, Use Cases and Advance Notice

The following topics are under discussion in the Web Schemas Schema.org community, but are not yet approaching specific proposed designs or broad consensus on an approach. Note that this distinction is pretty fuzzy, but some partitioning was needed here due to the number of proposals we're seeing. There is no shame in being listed here rather than as a proposal above!

Topic Status Summary Vocab Comments
Ranking Proposal Proposal to add a list of items as a ranking (Top 10, Best sellers etc.) One new type http://schema.org/ItemList/Ranking. Probably we need to specify the type, the name and the order (ascendant, descendant). Often used in magazines.
PressReview Proposal Proposal to add a list of articles, events etc. as a Press review or Press digest One new type http://schema.org/ItemList/PressReview Often used in organization websites
ScholarlyArticle Early proposal from HighWire Press needs review. Various ideas around improving ScholarlyArticle. Suggestion that scholarly articles could be described in more detail. There is a lot of related work in this area. For example Google Scholar publisher guidelines; Microsoft Academic Search. The Open Archives Initiative - Protocol for Metadata Harvesting also addresses this problem area and has broad adoption. See also earlier comments from HighWire Press (pdf) and following discussion (on the old mailing list).
Real Estate Discussions but no proposal yet. Enthusiastic discussion in favour of adding RealEstate support. Tracked as issue 13. This should likely follow along after the Good Relations work. N/A Related to Place vocabulary, and schema.org's numerous subclasses, and Offer class.
Transport Data Discussion Initial discussion on description of transport data. N/A Discussions on whether this scenario can be covered with existing vocabulary.
Activities (things you can do) Proposal Vocabulary for describing general activities not bound to any specific time or place.

Unrelated to the Activities and Actions proposal for online user page interations that are listed above.

Examples: 'Paragliding'. 'Going to the cinema', etc. Public draft and description available on wiki. Original proposal on public vocabs mailinglist.
Person biography Proposal A proposal for supporting people's biography Add a bibliography property to the Person type.
Project Proposal Vocabulary for describing any kind of project Terms (loosely) based on this project vocabulary Use case gathering - see mailing list thread
Vacation Rental Schema Proposal Creating an additional vocabulary for this hotel-alternative accommodation Overview of new terms Just initiated the discussion around this schema. Public proposal available on the Wiki
Fictional Thing Proposal Providing the ability to identify a thing as being fictional Proposal for the creation of a FictionalThing type Supporting discussion around this schema. Public proposal available on the Wiki
JobMarket Proposal Extension for modelling job markets Classes added: Compensation, WorkExperience + class amended: JobPosting Draft for an extension published to elicit feedback
VisualArtwork Early Proposal Extension for CreativeWork and replacement/alternative to Painting and Sculpture Overview of Extension and new properties Early draft for an extension published to elicit feedback.
GeoJSON Early propsal addition to the Geo* family of topics. N/A Related to Place vocabulary
Looking Inside Tables Early proposal A mechanism to map the contents of tables into entities. N/A Draft for an extension published to elicit feedback.
Online Presence Early proposal expressing Online Presence and current Actions WIP Related to Action subtree and Online Presence Ontology.
SocialAccount Proposal Introduce a type and a property to describe social accounts of http://schema.org/Person or http://schema.org/Organization Add SocialAccount type derived from http://schema.org/Thing to capture social account. Update http://schema.org/Person and http://schema.org/Organization by adding the property socialAccount expecting the type SocialAccount See also the mailing list discussion
socialAccount Proposal Introduce a property to describe social accounts of http://schema.org/Person and http://schema.org/Organization Update http://schema.org/Person and http://schema.org/Organization by adding the property socialAccount expecting a URL as value See also the mailing list discussion This is an alternative of the previous item
Course Proposal Introduce Course type to describe course as well as online courses (e.g. MOOCs) Extend http://schema.org/CreativeWork to describe Course type. Proposed vocabularies are available on https://sites.google.com/site/moocontology/home] See also the mailing list discussion
VLEs: Course, Session, Assessment Proposal Introduce additional concepts to describe Virtual Learning Environments' (VLEs) content and online courses (e.g. MOOCs) See also the mailing list discussion
Proposal name How far along Summary of contribution. Overview of new terms Comments on status, particularly regarding integration, overlaps and open issues.

Already Accepted and Added

Topic Status Summary Vocab Comments
Re-Design Provider / Seller vocabulary Published Address the issues / confusion in the relationship between provider and seller Allows for clarity in cases like flight reservations, where you have both an airline seller and airline operator Full details are documented at W3C and in Github, alongside an overview document.
Periodicals, Articles and Multi-volume Works Published Three new Types: Periodical, PublicationVolume, PublicationIssue, and added properties for two existent Types: Article, CreativeWork See discussion on public-vocabs. Introduces changes proposed by the Bib Extend group for describing periodicals, alongside a 'work to work' property, 'workExample' (and an inverse).
Event schema update Added 2013 (@@details?) Some modifications to Event based on deployment experience. Adds eventStatus, previousStartDate, previousEndDate; eventCategory; makes startDate/endDate repeatable. Encourages use of 'url' from Thing. Fairly modest proposals based on implementor feedback. May2013 update addresses the last open issue on repeating events.
Job Postings Published A type for Job adverts. Adds JobPosting class and supporting properties. Related discussion on CVs and resumes. The occupationalCategory property takes controlled values; more detail and options (e.g. EU ESCO) here would be useful.
IPTC/rNews integration Published Integration of the rNews vocabulary produced by the IPTC. See original rNews 1.0 intro; most of these terms are now in schema.org directly. See New York Times' implementation announcement for details and examples.
WebSchemas/Comment Published A fix to confusion around UserComments and lack of a Comment entity. Add a class Comment under CreativeWork, for comments. UserComments remains a UserInteraction event, and awaits further clarification. This addresses a need to have a representation of comments as documents, rather than merely as a user activity.
Software Application Published A class for Software Applications ('webapps', both installable and Web-based). Re-uses some properties of CreativeWork; defines a subclass SoftwareApplication with 20 properties, plus two small subclasses. This was been accepted and was sent for implementation (2012-04-15). Note that the SoftwareApplicationType enumeration may remain a Snippets-only vocabulary.
Singularity Published Proposes we move to singular property names, based on implementor feedback. Adds new properties without a plural 's', aliases old ones. This has been accepted and sent for implementation (2012-04-15)
External Enumerations published Guidance on how to cite external enumerations, including constrained values for properties, and large collections of useful types. For example, it should be possible to use lists of countries from e.g. ISO, UN. Or units and measures from systems such as QUDT. Or community or professionally-maintained lists from Wikipedia, Library or GIS standards, etc. Blog post covers initial/core design; further work will include lists of known authorities.
Medical/Health published Extended schema.org for describing key topics and their relationships in online health and medical content. Adds MedicalEntity hierarchy including types for key medical/health topics (such as conditions, signs and symptoms, disease causes, risk factors, therapies including drugs and procedures, tests, devices, studies and trials, guidelines, diets, supplements, exercise plans, and anatomy) and supporting types. See blog post and overview document for details. Published as v0.95 on 2012-06-26.
additionalType published Provides utility property for describing additional types. Added 'additionalType' to Thing, with detailed description discouraging use outside of Microdata syntax, since RDFa has 'typeof' built-in. Published as v0.96 on 2012-07-17.
Good Relations integration published The schema.org team and Martin Hepp collaborated to integrate of a version of GR into schema.org. See Good Relations site for background, e.g. quickstart page. Schema.org already had Offer and related terms, but benefitted from adding detail from Good Relations. Controlled values are still at purl.org GR URLs, and Good Relations continues as an independent project.
Learning Resources Added as 1.0a, April 2013. The Learning Resources Metadata Initiative defines a set of terms to improve schema.org's use with educational materials. Mainly adds new properties (typically but not necc. on CreativeWork): intendedEndUserRole, educationalAlignment, with values in a new class, AlignmentObject; educationalUse (Text values), timeRequired (a Duration); typicalAgeRange (Text valued); interactivityType (Text); learningResourceType, ... Comments. see version 1.0 and discussion list.
Datasets Added as 1.0a, April 2013 based on dataset.html A proposal extending schema.org for describing datasets and data catalogs. This may be revised to track evolution of W3C DCAT. Adds the Dataset, DataCatalog, and DataDownload types and supporting properties. An example page with dataset microdata is available here. For related efforts, see the W3C Government Linked Data Working Group.
Tech Article Added as 1.0a, April 2013. schema: techpub.html A proposal extending schema.org for describing technical content. Adds dependencies, task, and technicalAudience. Adds descriptions for genre (CreativeWork) and about (CreativeWork). Added as 1.0a, April 2013
API Reference Added as 1.0a, April 2013. drafted A proposal extending schema.org for describing Application Programming Interface (API) reference content. Derived from TechArticle; adds assembly, assemblyVersion, programmingModel, targetPlatform Added as 1.0a, April 2013
Code Added as 1.0a, April 2013. drafted A proposal extending schema.org for describing human readable source code. Adds codeRepository, codeSample, programmingLanguage, runtime, targetProduct. Added as 1.0a, April 2013
Audience Added as 1.0a, April 2013. drafted A proposal extending schema.org for describing audiences, building around http://schema.org/Audience type, also used by (and coordinated with) LRMI and MedicalHealth vocabulary. Add property audience to type CreativeWork (done) and Product. Also ParentAudience, ... see draft for details. This was added in stages; Medical/Health introduced the basic type 'Audience' first.
Citation Promotion Added as 1.0b, 24 July 2013. To promote the 'citation' property currently on MedicalScholarlyArticle up to CreativeWork. Moved citation up to CreativeWork
sameAs Added as 1.0b, 24 July 2013. Property to indicate that a single identity is being described. Broadly same meaning as owl:sameAs.
Actions in Schema.org (part 1) Added as 1.0c, 7 August 2013. Added a basic Action type to schema.org, as a foundation for further extension. See full entry and proposal for details. The schema.org team solicit comments on this draft via public-vocabs@w3.org.
TV and Radio proposal Added as 1.0d, 21 November 2013 Proposes modest changes and additions to support TV and radio (from EBU and BBC). Adds Series, Season, Episode under CreativeWork. Existing TVSeries, TVSeason, TVEpisode under Series/Season/Episode. Adds RadioSeries/RadioSeason/RadioEpisode alongside. Adds Programme/Clip for programmes other than episodes. Adds description of a service with Service/PublicationEvent for broadcast, streaming, VoD, etc. See also background notes and [[3]]. Draft initially from EBU/BBC/NoTube discussions. Nearby vocab: see VideoObject, AudioObject; Movie. Event re scheduling. See also UserPlays, a kind of UserInteraction. Comics and TV/Radio also share a concern for describing fictional characters and narratives.
Civic Services Added as 1.0d, 21 November 2013. Describing public civic services A proposal extending schema.org to cover various kinds of civic services. GovernmentService, several kinds of CivicPermit, CivicAudience, BusinessAudience; various properties
Add Organization department property Added as 1.0d, 21 November 2013 Added properties department and subOrganizationOf to Organization, to allow local businesses to describe their depts (e.g. opening hours) in detail. department and subOrganization properties (range and domain both Organization) Proposal greatly simplified after WebSchemas discussion.
Orders in Schema.org Added as 1.0e, 4 December 2013 "While schema.org already supports marking up offers to sell products (pre-transaction), it does not currently provide schema for the common kinds of confirmations and notifications around orders (post-transaction)". Adds classes OrderStatus, Order, DeliveryMethod plus associated properties. Complements Actions proposal, but independent.
Accessibility Added as 1.0e, 4 December 2013. A proposal for adding accessibility metadata to all Creative Work content, done in concert with LRMI Added four properties to CreativeWork to enable better discovery of accessible content.
Actions in Schema.org (part 2) Added 2014 Add handlers and potential actions to Action type. See full entry and proposal for details. The schema.org team solicit comments on this draft via public-vocabs@w3.org.
Reservations in Schema.org Added 2014 This proposal includes new types for describing reservations and tickets Adds classes Reservation, ReservationStatus, ProgramMembership, Flight, TrainTrip, TrainReservation, FoodEstablishmentReservation, FlightReservation, EventReservation, ReservationPackage, BusReservation, BusTrip, RentalCarReservation, RentalCar, Car, LodgingReservation plus associated properties. Complements Actions proposal, but independent.
EmailMessage type Added 2014 This proposal adds a single new type, EmailMessage EmailMessage is a CreativeWork representing email messages, just as WebPage already represents Web pages. No properties currently defined; proposals welcomed.




Wiki markup

  • We have two templates for use here: Template:SchemaDotOrgProposal which takes 'name' and 'status' parameters, and which returns a one line page header for proposals; also Template:SchemaDotOrgTerm, which takes a 'term' parameter and returns a simple hyperlink to that (class) term on schema.org.

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