Version 1.00 of the RADion schema is officially released under the ISA Open Metadata Licence v1.1.
Throughout the development of the Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS) and the newly developed specification for software metadata, ADMS.F/OSS (Asset Description Metadata Schema for Software), it became clear that both specifications had a lot in common with each other and with an existing, widely used vocabulary, DCAT (Data Catalog Vocabulary). In each case the concepts of a Repository, an Asset and a Distribution were used (although perhaps with different names). Because each vocabulary demanded its own specialisation, there was a need to maintain coherence between the three vocabularies and any future vocabulary that describes similar types of catalogue. Therefore RADion, a new conceptual scheme, was created.
RADion – an acronym for Repository, Asset and Distribution – is the top-level specification that captures the mutual elements from ADMS, ADMS.F/OSS and DCAT and their supporting concepts. It offers a common way to describe assets that may evolve through a number of versions and be published in a series of releases (perhaps in different formats), all in an online repository. Open Data portals, software forges and portals such as Joinup are all examples of such repositories. As a common top-level specification, it helps to reduce complexity and improves consistency and interoperability between ADMS, ADMS.F/OSS and DCAT. Deciding what was in RADion and what was specific to each of the original vocabularies was easy: if it is in all three, it is in RADion; if this is not the case it is not. ADMS and ADMS.F/OSS both explicitly create subclasses of the RADion classes in their RDF schemas.
This release of RADion is the result of the joint efforts of the multidisciplinary ADMS and ADMS.F/OSS working groups. It is already used in the ADMS v1.00 specification, officially released last month, and in ADMS.F/OSS v0.3, which is now in a public review period.
Future plans
RADion, as well as ADMS and three Core Vocabularies (Core Person, Core Business, and Core Location), will be contributed to the W3C’s Government Linked Data (GLD) Working Group. The GLD Working Group was set up in 2011 to provide standards and other information which help governments around the world to publish their data as effective and usable Linked Data using Semantic Web technologies. The ISA Programme outputs will be published by the GLD Working Group as First Public Working Drafts for further consultation within the context of the typical W3C standardization process. The desired outcome of that process will be the publication of these vocabularies as open Web standards available under W3C's Royalty-Free Licence.
To know more
- RADion – Joinup description
- RADion v1.00 – first official release
- ADMS – Joinup description
- ADMS v1.00 – first official release
- ADMS.F/OSS – Joinup description
- ADMS.F/OSS v0.03 – release for public review
Related News item
- 2012-04-18 – ADMS v1.00 officially released
- 2012-05-02 – Vocabulary for software metadata released for public review