Dublin Core conformance

[Tony Linde]

I'd like to raise the issue of whether or not the Registry ought to be
compliant with Dublin Core and, if so, to what extent. 

I must say that I don't see any 'compelling' reason for conformance to DC.
It would perhaps be useful if registry metadata was harvestable by
DC-compatible harvesters but that does not mean that the registry metadata
should follow DC structure or naming conventions where it is inapplicable.

Would it not be simpler to state:

1. Any resource schema which is submitted as a standard must be acompanied
by transformation instructions (via XSL) to generate some DC-compliant
schema that we specify.

2. A registry which wants to make its contents harvestable by DC-compatible
tools should do so using the schema transformation methods.

Then we can define the astro resource metadata in terms and structures as is
understandable by astronomers and suitable for astronomical software.

So, two questions: Do we need/want to make resource metadata DC-compatible?
And, if so, is the above approach sufficient?

Cheers,
Tony. 

__
Tony Linde                       Phone:  +44 (0)116 223 1292
AstroGrid Project Manager        Fax:    +44 (0)116 252 3311
Dept of Physics & Astronomy      Mobile: +44 (0)7753 603356
University of Leicester          Email:  ael at star.le.ac.uk
Leicester, UK   LE1 7RH          Web:    http://www.astrogrid.org