Filmstandards.org root namespace

filmstandards.org is designated as the root namespace for several metadata specifications, both public and specific to individual organizations. Even though not essential for URI schemes as such, associating an URI with a real, machine-accessible resource enables computer programs to follow directions given by the resource, e.g. validation rules, or references to further resources.

Services

Currently, filmstandards.org has two kinds of namespace service in place:

XML schema access from URI

URIs under the /schemas path point to metadata definitions specified in the XML schema language. As an example, http://filmstandards.org/schemas/EN15907-d1/ will retrieve the first draft of an XML schema based on EN 15907.

Declaring an XML namespace with one of these namespaces offers the advantage that any corresponding XML document (such as a filmographic metadata record) can be checked for syntactic validity using any validating XML parser that has access to the net via HTTP.

Resolvable URIs for SPARQL

URIs under paths /localdefs and /pubdefs point to definitions of individual metadata elements expressed in RDF/XML. The /localdefs path is provided for in-house definitions, while anything under /pubdefs is from community specifications or public standards.

These definitions can be used in many ways. A very basic usage is obtaining a natural language definition (if present) of the element, e.g. http://filmstandards.org/localdefs/de/dif/zf1/pnSuffix . A more interesting feature of these URIs is that they can be referenced in SPARQL queries. This means that a definition can become a part of a reasoning chain, e.g. for checking the validity of a metadata statement not only syntactically, but also with respect to semantic assumptions.

FAQ about namespaces

What is a namespace?

A namespace puts a statement (or a whole collection of statements) into a given context. For example, a title statement can have quite distinct meanings in law, art, librarianship or filmography. Associating title with a namespace from the law community will prevent confusion with notions of title from other communities.