Schema for a generic (data) provenance annotation
This schema builds on the Thing
schema, and diversifies it to capture
the key provenance concepts Agent, Activity,
Entity, and their relationships. It does that by drawing on (a
subset) of the PROV data model PROV-DM.
Central paradigm of the schema is the qualified relation
pattern.
The three Thing derived key concepts Agent, Activity, and
Entity build on the Thing slot relations (symmetric property) for
inline declaration of related things, and extend the basic means of
qualifying a relationship via is_characterized_by
and with provenance specific slots, and
qualified_relations for declaring the roles of
related things.
Specifically the latter approach takes the place of all of the various
qualified* properties defined in PROV. Rather than supporting association
classes like prov:Derivation or prov:Generation, such relationships are
annotated by linking to things via slots like
was_derived_from or
was_generated_by, and characterizing the relationship
via qualified_relations, and a (custom)
Role declaration.
The schema is entity-centric, meaning that entity properties are preferred
over activity properties expressing the same (inverse) relationship. For
example, an entity's was_generated_by is implemented,
but not an activity's generated.
With Person, Organization, and
SoftwareAgent, the three essential Agent types
included in PROV are supported. However, these classes provide no
additional slots over their base class. Their purpose is only semantic
differentiation.
A custom CURIE prefix email: is defined and emitted to allow for using
emails as suitable schema identifiers for an email address (e.g.,
email:me@example.com).
The schema definition is available as
URI: https://concepts.datalad.org/s/prov/unreleased
Name: prov-schema
Schema Diagram
erDiagram
Agent {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Activity {
W3CISO8601 ended_at
W3CISO8601 started_at
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Entity {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Person {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Organization {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
SoftwareAgent {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
ThingMixin {
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
ValueSpecificationMixin {
uriorcurie range
string value
}
AttributeSpecification {
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
uriorcurie range
string value
}
Property {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Statement {
}
Thing {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
ValueSpecification {
uriorcurie range
string value
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Identifier {
uriorcurie creator
string notation
string schema_agency
}
DOI {
uriorcurie creator
string notation
string schema_agency
}
Role {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Relationship {
}
Location {
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
InstanteneousEvent {
W3CISO8601 at_time
uriorcurie id
uriorcurie schema_type
uriorcurie type
}
Agent ||--}o Agent : "acted_on_behalf_of"
Agent ||--|o Location : "at_location"
Agent ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
Agent ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
Agent ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Agent ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Agent ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Activity ||--|o Location : "at_location"
Activity ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
Activity ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
Activity ||--}o Agent : "was_associated_with"
Activity ||--}o Activity : "was_informed_by"
Activity ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Activity ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Activity ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Entity ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
Entity ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
Entity ||--}o Agent : "was_attributed_to"
Entity ||--}o Entity : "was_derived_from"
Entity ||--}o Activity : "was_generated_by"
Entity ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Entity ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Entity ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Person ||--}o Agent : "acted_on_behalf_of"
Person ||--|o Location : "at_location"
Person ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
Person ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
Person ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Person ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Person ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Organization ||--}o Agent : "acted_on_behalf_of"
Organization ||--|o Location : "at_location"
Organization ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
Organization ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
Organization ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Organization ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Organization ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
SoftwareAgent ||--}o Agent : "acted_on_behalf_of"
SoftwareAgent ||--|o Location : "at_location"
SoftwareAgent ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
SoftwareAgent ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
SoftwareAgent ||--}o Thing : "relations"
SoftwareAgent ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
SoftwareAgent ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
ThingMixin ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
ThingMixin ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
AttributeSpecification ||--|| Property : "predicate"
AttributeSpecification ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
AttributeSpecification ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Property ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Property ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Property ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Statement ||--|| Thing : "object"
Statement ||--|| Property : "predicate"
Thing ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Thing ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Thing ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
ValueSpecification ||--}o Thing : "relations"
ValueSpecification ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
ValueSpecification ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Role ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Role ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Role ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Relationship ||--|| Thing : "object"
Relationship ||--}| Role : "had_roles"
Location ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
Location ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
Location ||--}o Thing : "relations"
Location ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
Location ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
InstanteneousEvent ||--}o Identifier : "identifiers"
InstanteneousEvent ||--}o Relationship : "qualified_relations"
InstanteneousEvent ||--}o Thing : "relations"
InstanteneousEvent ||--}o AttributeSpecification : "has_attributes"
InstanteneousEvent ||--}o Statement : "is_characterized_by"
Classes
| Class | Description |
|---|---|
| AttributeSpecification | An attribute is conceptually a thing, but it requires no dedicated identifier (id). Instead, it is linked to a Thing via its has_attributes slot and declares a predicate on the nature of the relationship. |
| Identifier | An identifier is a label that uniquely identifies an item in a particular context. Some identifiers are globally unique. All identifiers are unique within the scope of their issuing agency. |
| DOI | Digital Object Identifier (DOI; ISO 26324), an identifier system governed by the DOI Foundation, where individual identifiers are issued by one of several registration agencies. |
| Relationship | An association class for characterizing the relation between two things with the role(s) the object had with respect to the subject. A relationship is always between two things only, but can be annotated with multiple roles (for example, a person having both an author role with respect to a dataset, and also being the person who is legally responsible contact for it). |
| Statement | An RDF statement that links a predicate (a Property) with an object (a Thing) to the subject to form a triple. A Statement is used to qualify a relation to a Thing referenced by its identifier. For specifying a qualified relation to an attribute that has no dedicated identifier, use an AttributeSpecification. |
| Thing | The most basic, identifiable item. In addition to the slots that are common between a Thing and an AttributeSpecification (see ThingMixin), two additional slots are provided. The id slot takes the required identifier for a Thing. The relation slot allows for the inline specification of other Thing instances. Such a relation is unqualified (and symmetric), and should be further characterized via a Statement (see is_characterized_by). From a schema perspective, the relation slots allows for building self-contained, structured documents (e.g., a JSON object) with arbitrarily complex information on a Thing. |
| Activity | An activity is something that occurs over a period of time and acts upon or with entities; it may include consuming, processing, transforming, modifying, relocating, using, or generating entities. |
| Agent | Something that bears some form of responsibility for an activity taking place, for the existence of an entity, or for another agent's activity. |
| Organization | A social or legal instititution such as a company, a society, or a university. |
| Person | Person agents are people, alive, dead, or fictional. |
| SoftwareAgent | Running software. |
| Entity | A physical, digital, conceptual, or other kind of thing with some fixed aspects; entities may be real or imaginary. |
| InstanteneousEvent | A moment of a transition from one particular state of the world to another. |
| Location | A location can be an identifiable geographic place (ISO 19112), but it can also be a non-geographic place such as a directory, row, or column. As such, there are numerous ways in which location can be expressed, such as by a coordinate, address, landmark, and so forth. |
| Property | An RDF property, a Thing used to define a predicate, for example in a Statement. |
| Role | A role is the function of a resource or agent with respect to another resource, in the context of resource attribution or resource relationships. |
| ValueSpecification | A Thing that is a value of some kind. This class can be used to describe an outcome of a measurement, a factual value or constant, or other qualitative or quantitative information with an associated identifier. If no identifier is available, an AttributeSpecification can be used within the context of an associated Thing (has_attributes). |
| ThingMixin | Mix-in with the common interface of Thing and AttributeSpecification. This interface enables type specifications (rdf:type) for things and attributes. This is complemented by the schema_type slot (also rdf:type) that serves as a type designator for specialized schema classes, to enable targeted validation and data transformation. A thing or attribute can be further describe with statements on qualified relations to other things (is_characterized_by), or inline attributes (has_attributes). |
| ValueSpecificationMixin | Mix-in for a (structured) value specification. Two slots are provided to define a (literal) value (value) and its type (range). |
Slots
| Slot | Description |
|---|---|
| acted_on_behalf_of | Assign the authority and responsibility for carrying out a specific activity ... |
| at_location | Associate the subject with a location |
| at_time | Time at which an instanteneous event takes place or took place |
| creator | An agent responsible for making an entity |
| ended_at | End is when an activity is deemed to have been ended by some trigger |
| had_roles | The function of an entity or agent with respect to another entity or resource |
| has_attributes | Declares a relation that associates a Thing (or another attribute) with an ... |
| id | Globally unique identifier of a metadata object, such as a Thing |
| identifiers | An unambiguous reference to the subject within a given context |
| is_characterized_by | Qualifies relationships between a subject Thing and an object Thing with ... |
| notation | String of characters such as "T58:5" or "30:4833" used to uniquely identify a... |
| object | Reference to a Thing within a Statement |
| predicate | Reference to a Property within a Statement |
| qualified_relations | Characterizes the relationship or role of an entity with respect to the subje... |
| range | Declares that the value of a Thing or AttributeSpecification are instance... |
| relations | Declares an unqualified relation of the subject Thing to another Thing |
| schema_agency | Name of the agency that issued an identifier |
| schema_type | Type designator of a schema element for validation and schema structure handl... |
| started_at | Start is when an activity is deemed to have been started by some trigger |
| type | State that the subject is an instance of a particular RDF class |
| value | Value of a thing |
| was_associated_with | An activity association is an assignment of responsibility to an agent for an... |
| was_attributed_to | Attribution is the ascribing of an entity to an agent |
| was_derived_from | Derivation is a transformation of an entity into another, an update of an ent... |
| was_generated_by | Generation is the completion of production of a new entity by an activity |
| was_informed_by | Communication is the exchange of an entity by two activities, one activity us... |
Enumerations
| Enumeration | Description |
|---|---|
Types
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Boolean | A binary (true or false) value |
| Curie | a compact URI |
| Date | a date (year, month and day) in an idealized calendar |
| DateOrDatetime | Either a date or a datetime |
| Datetime | The combination of a date and time |
| Decimal | A real number with arbitrary precision that conforms to the xsd:decimal speci... |
| Double | A real number that conforms to the xsd:double specification |
| Float | A real number that conforms to the xsd:float specification |
| Integer | An integer |
| Jsonpath | A string encoding a JSON Path |
| Jsonpointer | A string encoding a JSON Pointer |
| Ncname | Prefix part of CURIE |
| Nodeidentifier | A URI, CURIE or BNODE that represents a node in a model |
| Objectidentifier | A URI or CURIE that represents an object in the model |
| Sparqlpath | A string encoding a SPARQL Property Path |
| String | A character string |
| Time | A time object represents a (local) time of day, independent of any particular... |
| Uri | a complete URI |
| Uriorcurie | a URI or a CURIE |
| W3CISO8601 | W3C variant/subset of IS08601 for specifying date(times) |
Subsets
| Subset | Description |
|---|---|