- This repository primarily hosts the Application Profile (DS-TCAT-AP) for the DSSC Dataspaces Toolbox, currently available at https://toolbox.dssc.eu/.
- In addition, it contains ontologies, controlled vocabularies, and semantic application profiles required for DS-TCAT-AP, all developed following the AP-first methodology.
DS-TCAT-AP is an application profile (AP) for modeling metadata for the DSSC Dataspaces Toolbox. It aims to enable advanced discovery of tools based on rich, multi-parameter queries. It defines:
- General metadata elements (e.g., title, version, provider, license)
- DSSC service category-specific metadata (Federation Services, Participant Agent Services, and Value Creation Services)
- DSSC service-specific metadata (e.g., tools of type Vocabulary Service within the Federation Services category)
Metadata Layers:
The following figure illustrates the inverted pyramid of the three metadata specification layers.
- Application Profile
- DS-TCAT-AP
- Ontologies and Controlled Vocabularies
- DSSC ontology and vocabularies to model concepts from the DSSC Dataspaces Blueprint (e.g., Building Blocks, Dataspace Services)
- TCAT ontology: a lightweight ontology for any software tools catalog
- DS-TCAT ontology: extends TCAT to capture dataspace-specific concepts
- Service-specific modules (e.g., Vocabulary Service module, Participant Agent Service module)
- Controlled vocabularies for representing enumerations
- Competency questions for scoping and validating the models (Issues and discussions)
- Example instances and queries (SPARQL queries based on competency questions)
- Documentation (Currently, in README files)
- Root:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/→https://github.com/Fraunhofer-FIT-DSAI/ds-tcat-ap - Ontologies:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/ont/ - Controlled Vocabularies:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/vocab/ - Application Profiles:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/ap/
Specific Models:
- DS-TCAT-AP:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/ap/ds-tcat-ap/ - DSSC Ontology:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/ont/dssc/ - TCAT Ontology:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/ont/tcat/ - DS-TCAT Ontology:
https://w3id.org/dataspaces/ont/ds-tcat/
- Use all lowercase
- Separate words with hyphens (-)
- Examples:
ds-tcat-ontology.ttl,visual-models
Semantic Versioning 2.0.0:
MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH
- MAJOR (1.x.x): Breaking changes to ontology structure
- MINOR (x.1.x): New classes/properties (backward compatible)
- PATCH (x.x.1): Bug fixes, documentation updates
This collection serves as the first reference for ontology development.
It is a living document, continuously maintained and enhanced.
| Data Model | Prefix / URI | Links | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| DCMI Terms | dcterms: http://purl.org/dc/terms/ | Link | dc is a subset of dcterms |
| DCMI Elements | dc: http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/ | ||
| DCMI Type | dcmitype: http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/ | ||
| DCMI Dcam | dcam: http://purl.org/dc/dcam/ | ||
| Software Metadata Recommended Format Guide (2022) | Link | ||
| ADMS (2013) | adms: http://www.w3.org/ns/adms# | Link | |
| SPDX | spdx: http://spdx.org/rdf/terms | Link | |
| Schema.org | schema: https://schema.org/ | Link | |
| Smart Data Models | Link | ||
| DCAT v3 | dcat: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat-3/ | ||
| FOAF | foaf: http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/ | Link |
Benefits of semantic metadata models over traditional JSON Schema:
- Improved discovery via semantic search & reasoning
- Synonym-based retrieval (e.g., Participant Agent ~ Connector)
- Hierarchical reasoning (e.g., search for Federation Services → also finds Vocabulary Services, etc.)
- Advanced querying with SPARQL
- Cross-domain interoperability across knowledge graphs
- Human-readability: reuse of known vocabularies (DCMI, Schema.org)
- Linked Data advantage: machine-readable, RDF-based descriptions enable integration with other catalogs
- Extensibility: easily extendable with new classes, vocabularies, and modules
[1] DSSC Dataspaces Blueprint and Building Blocks
[2] DSSC Dataspaces Services (Blueprint v2.0)
[3] DSSC Dataspaces Toolbox