Vocabulary Management Tool

2010-05-05

This tool was developed in circa 2002 by Mitsuharu Nagamori
and Harry Wagner.  It is used to generate RDF schemas and Web
pages for DCMI Metadata Terms from source files in unvalidated
XML, hand-edited using vi.  We have long recognized that this
method could be improved but, while somewhat cumbersome,
it has served us well for eight years given the frequency
with which we need to make changes.  We are making it available
in an open source repository and welcome improvements to the 
code.

Specifically, we are interested in modifying the XSL transforms
to generate Web pages for DCMI metadata terms that contain its
formal RDF specification embedded in the attributes using RDFa.

To use the tool, the vocabulary maintainer edits the following
files, adding terms that have been approved or making changes
to existing terms:

    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/dcam.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/dcelements.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/dcterms-classes.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/dcterms-properties.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/dcterms-ses.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/dcterms-ves.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/dctype.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/header-doc-dcterms.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/header-doc-dctype.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/header-doc-history.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/header-rdf-dcam.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/header-rdf-dcelements.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/header-rdf-dcterms.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/header-rdf-dctype.xml
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/intro.dcmi-terms.xsl
    http://dublincore.org/usage/xml/intro.history.xsl

Note that to change an existing term, a new snapshot is created,
then edited, so that each historical "description" of the term
is preserved.  This is analogous to the way DCMI and W3C version
Web documents -- i.e., snapshots supersede each other and accumulate
to form the historical record.  DCMI would also welcome feedback
or suggestions on this versioning model.

To prepare a new release of documentation, the editor copies
the files listed above to a time-stamped directory under the 
VMT project (here, vmt:), e.g. as follows:

    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/header-doc-dcterms.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/header-doc-dctype.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/header-doc-history.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/header-rdf-dcam.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/header-rdf-dcelements.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/header-rdf-dcterms.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/header-rdf-dctype.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/intro.dcmi-terms.xsl
    vmt:2008-01-14/headers/intro.history.xsl
    vmt:2008-01-14/xmldata/dcam.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/xmldata/dcelements.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/xmldata/dcterms-classes.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/xmldata/dcterms-properties.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/xmldata/dcterms-ses.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/xmldata/dcterms-ves.xml
    vmt:2008-01-14/xmldata/dctype.xml

Then the following file is edited:

    vmt:build.xml

for example, thus:

    :%s/2008-01-14/2010-04-30/

The build file uses the following XSL files:

    vmt:web/xsl/common-templates.xsl
    vmt:web/xsl/dcam.xsl
    vmt:web/xsl/dcelements.xsl
    vmt:web/xsl/dcterms.xsl
    vmt:web/xsl/dctype.xsl
    vmt:web/xsl/html-dcmiterms.xsl
    vmt:web/xsl/html-dctype.xsl
    vmt:web/xsl/html-history.xsl

Apache Ant (version 1.7 or higher)[1] is required to run the program.
After installation of Apache Ant, execute the command:

    $ ant

The output is written to a new directory:

    vmt:build

The output is then installed on the DCMI stage server for publication
on the production Website.  As a final step, the PURLs for DCMI metadata
terms are edited to point to the schemas.  See, for example:

    http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/
    -> http://dublincore.org/documents/2008/01/14/dcmi-terms/
    http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-type-vocabulary/
    -> http://dublincore.org/documents/2008/01/14/dcmi-type-vocabulary/
    http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/
    -> http://dublincore.org/usage/terms/history/2008/01/14/
    http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/
    -> http://dublincore.org/documents/2008/01/14/dces/

    http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/
    -> http://dublincore.org/2008/01/14/dcelements.rdf#
    http://purl.org/dc/terms/
    -> http://dublincore.org/2008/01/14/dcterms.rdf#
    http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/
    -> http://dublincore.org/2008/01/14/dctype.rdf#
    http://purl.org/dc/dcam/
    -> http://dublincore.org/2008/01/14/dcam.rdf#

Any comments or feedback on this tool or the general approach
to publishing DCMI Metadata Terms (such as versioning) is 
most welcome.  To submit a comment, please either subscribe to
the dc-architecture mailing list [2] and post there or send 
comments to [email protected] indicating whether or not they are 
intended also for posting to the list.

Tom Baker <[email protected]>
CIO, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative Ltd.
http://dublincore.org


[1] http://ant.apache.org/
[2] http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/dc-architecture.html