Registries, IVO ids, and Data Set Identifiers

[Tony Linde]

A (hopefully brief) discussion on AuthorityID

Firstly the AuthorityID should be meaningless, acting solely as a pointer to
an Authority resource and a 'container' for resources. The Authority
metadata will describe who registered the ID and where it was registered (ie
pointers to an Organisation (or Person or whatever) resource and a Registry
resource).

The structure of the AuthorityID should stick to that outlined in the WD, ie
looking like a domain name. It is then up to individuals and organisations
to decide how to structure the parts of that.

As for the '#' vs '?set=' I'm not overly bothered. The decision should not
affect the resource identifier as long as we say that '#' or '?' will
terminate the resource identifier in a string representation.

Resolving either of these means:

1. splitting the string into resource identifier and part identifier

2. querying a registry for service type resources which a) have a
'ServesDataCollection' relationship to the resource identifier and b)
provide a part lookup method

3. choosing one such service and calling the part lookup method with the
part identifier

The AuthorityID need not be tied to an institution, telescope or anything
else. Eg, a registry may accept resource entries under some 'default'
AuthorityID which is 'owned' by noone (so has a null pointer to the
'owner').

If we want some way of regulating AuthorityIDs, it will take a while to come
up with something that is workable and which everyone can accept. I'd
suggest in the first instance the following process:

1. anyone who wants to use an AuthorityID under a given registry emails the
sysadmin of that registry and asks for it.

2. the sysadmin publishes the AuthorityID and the person/organisation
requesting it to a mailing list

3. if noone objects within a couple of days, the AuthorityID is added; if
anyone does object then we hand it over to the individuals to sort out

Any registry owner which does not play by these rules will likely get his
registry and all its resources deregistered from all the other registries so
will never get harvested.

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