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Handbook: Table of Contents
► Governing Board committees: Membership & Finance ◘ Nominations & Bylaws
► Technical Board committees: Usage ◘ Standards & Liaisons ◘ Community Specifications ◘ Infrastructure Advisory Committee (IAC)
► Advisory Board committees: Conferences & Meetings ◘ Education & Outreach
► Management: Executive ◘ Directorate


Contents


Committee Charge

The Usage Committee serves as DCMI's decision-making body on technical specifications to which DCMI, as an organization, makes a long-term maintenance commitment (i.e., periodic review on the basis of published principles). The commitment applies first and foremost to DCMI Metadata Terms in its machine- and human-readable manifestions, to international standards based on the Terms (such as ISO 15836), to mappings to related vocabularies, to DCMI's vocabulary maintenance policies, and it includes agreements with other vocabulary owners, such as the Agreement between DCMI and the FOAF Project. The Committee may extend this scope in accordance with procedures set out in the Committee's Process Manual and in relevant sections of the DCMI Bylaws, subject to oversight by the Governing Board.

Sub-committees

At the discretion of the UC chairs, task groups of fixed duration and charge may be created to address particular matters on the UC work agenda. Membership of such task groups is comprised of UC members and/or non-member experts as circumstances require.

Membership

  • Thomas Baker, Co-Chair
  • Kai Eckert, Co-Chair
  • Julie Allinson
  • Pete Johnston
  • Stefanie Rühle
  • Joe Tennis
Criteria: The members of the UC are appointed by the Governing Board based on demonstrated technical knowledge of metadata and Semantic Web principles. Chairs are appointed by the Governing Board from within the UC membership on nomination by the UC. UC Chairs serve open terms at the discretion of the Governing Board.

Scope, Work & Reporting

History: In 1999, an ad-hoc DCMI Usage Committee debated and took decisions on a large batch of proposals for new terms, resulting in the July 2000 publication of Dublin Core Qualifiers. The DCMI Usage Board was founded shortly thereafter so that future proposals and related maintenance activities could be handled by a group with stable membership on the basis of well-articulated principles. From 2001 to 2013, the scope of the DCMI Usage Board covered:

  • Maintenance of DCMI Metadata Terms (primarily);
  • Review of standards based on DCMI Metadata Terms published by formal standards organizations (NISO, IETF, and ISO);
  • Review of Application Profiles (experimentally);
  • Refinement of principles guiding its decisions.

Scope: The Usage Committee serves as DCMI's decision-making body on technical specifications to which DCMI, as an organization, makes a long-term maintenance commitment. This commitment is a statement to the general public of an intent to maintain a core set of high-priority assets as living specifications, subject to periodic review on the basis of published principles.

This maintenace commitment builds on and extends the DCMI Persistence Policy[1], by which the organization pledges to keep its documents available on the Web, with change histories, for as long as it is able, and to offer them to future hosts in the event that DCMI were disbanded.

The commitment applies first and foremost to DCMI Metadata Terms[2]: to its machine- and human-readable manifestions, to international standards based on the Terms (such as ISO 15836), to mappings to related vocabularies, and to the DCMI Namespace Policy[3] that specifies the policies and principles governing changes or extensions to DCMI-branded vocabularies generally.

Agreements with other vocabulary maintainers, such as the Agreement between DCMI and the FOAF Project [4], also fall under the remit of the Usage Committee.

Resources permitting, the Usage Committee may extend its scope to other technical specifications subject to the procedures set out in the Technical Board's Process Manual, the relevant sections of the DCMI Bylaws (as revised from time-to-time), and the oversight of the Governing Board.

Compared to charge of the existing Usage Board, the charge of the new Usage Committee is slightly broader inasmuch it:

  • Maintains the DCMI Namespace Policy;
  • Oversees the Agreement between DCMI and the FOAF Project;
  • Potentially maintains future specifications to which DCMI, as an organization, were to make a long-term commitment.


The UC may address matters and proposals within its charge that originate through:

  1. its own initiative;
  2. submission from within DCMI; or
  3. external submission.

Agenda: The UC determines the focus, details and calendar of its work agenda in consultation with the Governing Board based on:

  1. the ongoing need to systematically assess and maintain existing specifications;
  2. available and projected resources needed to create and maintain new specifications.

Reporting: The Usage Committee Chair reports to the Technical Committee in a manner set out in the Board Policies & Procedures

Communications

Key DCMI Handbook Pages

Committee Resources

Scratchpad (Committee Members only)

References

  1. ↑ http://dublincore.org/usage/documents/publications/#persistence
  2. ↑ http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-terms/
  3. ↑ http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmi-namespace/
  4. ↑ http://dublincore.org/documents/2011/05/02/dcmi-foaf/


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