Mistakes in registry

[Guy Rixon]

Hi,

The type element is just a metadataum in a resource document. The resource
type is the type of the document itself: it identifies the XML schema that
controls what may be put in a document.

All resource types have to be derived from the basic resource type as defined
by IVOA. You can, in principle, derive your own types but it's usually a bad
idea as no existing software will understand them.

IVOA defines most of the resource types and their list of schemata is at

  http://www.ivoa.net/xml/

Regional VO projects, e.g. AstroGrid, sometimes define extra types which they
back up with appropriate software. E.g., CeaApplicationType and CeaServiceType
are resource types defined by AstroGrid and used by CEA components. The idea
is to progressively bring these extra types in as IVOA standards, and this is
being done for CEA.

You can find the AstroGrid resource types at

 http://software.astrogrid.org/schemata/index.html

It's best not to define your own sub-types unless you're preparing special new
system-software. You get more interoperation by registering your resources
with the existing types. If you stick with the existing document types, the
type element in each resource document can be used instead to indicate some
specialization of scientific use.

Cheers,
Guy

On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, Nausicaa Delmotte wrote:

> Dear members,
>
> Malapert Jean-Christophe wrote the following on 02/03/2006 07:50 AM:
>
> > So, I think it is very easy to check some fields like serviceURL. The
> > other ones, I don't know because I miss some documentation. For example,
> > I don't know where the different values of ResourceType fields are
> > defined ? if it is possible to add others ones or not by a user ?
>
> I'm having some difficulties as well to understand the difference between Type and resourceType.
>
> * Type, according to the VOResource document, is "The nature or genre of the content of the resource."
> It is a list of the following keywords: archive, bibliography, catalog, journal, library, simulation, survey,
> education, outreach, EPOResource, animation, artwork, background, basicdata, historical,photographic,press,organization,
> project,registry,other.
>
> * Then, if you go either to the Astrogrid or the NVO registry, and you want to add a new resource,
> the first thing you have to do is to define the resourceType and this time you have to choose within:
> resource,organisation,authority,dataCollection,TabularDB,service,registry,skyService,tabularSkyService,coneSearch,
> SimpleImageAccess,...
> with slight differences between the NVO and Astrogrid lists, but the overall idea is the same.
>
> Hence my questions:
> - Has the second list been defined somewhere and is it user-extensible? What is its exact definition?
> - There is a kind of overlap between the two lists: see for instance keywords organisation, registry.
> Is it intended or are the two lists supposed to be merged in the future?
> - I find it misleading to have the second list named 'resourceType' whereas
> another list called 'Type' already exists and is by definition the type of the resource.
>
> It seems there is one word to define two different things.
>
> As a suggestion, I would rename resourceType as serviceType to get rid of the ambiguity and make fully clear
> that the type in the second list is not refering to the resource but to the service: SSA, SIA, Cone etc.
>
> However, I notice as well that there are some keywords in the second list which are not service-related.
> So after all serviceType might not be appropriate here...
> A service is a resource but a resource is not necessary a service, right ?
>
> Cheers
> Nausicaa
>

Guy Rixon 				        gtr at ast.cam.ac.uk
Institute of Astronomy   	                Tel: +44-1223-337542
Madingley Road, Cambridge, UK, CB3 0HA		Fax: +44-1223-337523