StatDCAT-AP 3.0.0

Abstract

StatDCAT-AP is an extension of the DCAT application profile for data portals in Europe ([[[DCAT-AP-3]]]) for data portals in Europe (DCAT-AP) designed to support to exchange of statistical information between data portals in Europe. The specification of the StatDCAT-AP is a joint initiative of Eurostat and the European Commission’s Interoperable Europe initiative [[INTEROPERABLE-EUROPE]].

Introduction

This document contains version 3.0.0 of the specification for StatDCAT-AP, an extension of the DCAT application profile for data portals in Europe [[DCAT-AP-3]] for describing statistical datasets, dataset series, and services.

The StatDCAT-AP specification does not replace the SDMX standard [[?SDMX]] nor the SDMX technical guidelines [[SDMX]] . Its purpose is to give producers and maintainers of statistical metadata the possibility to achieve more by providing the means of an additional implementation through harmonised RDF syntax bindings used in the Open Data community. Conversion rules to RDF syntax would allow Member States to maintain their collections of SDMX-relevant datasets following the SDMX Metadata technical guidelines, while at the same time publishing these collections on [[DCAT-AP-3]]-conformant data portals. A conversion to an RDF representation allows additional metadata elements to be displayed on general-purposed open data portals, provided that such data portals are capable of displaying additional metadata elements. Additionally, data portals may be capable of providing machine-to-machine interfaces where additional metadata could be provided.

Context

With a view to fostering Europe's digital transformation, the European Commission is investing in frameworks and agreements to provide governments and businesses with the appropriate resources to digitalise their services. There are, for instance, building blocks available for creating a single market for data, where data flows freely within the EU and across sectors for the benefit of businesses, researchers and public administrations.

To this direction, the European Commission launched the European Data Strategy [[DataStrategy]], as part of the European Commission's priorities for 2019-2024 in order to make the EU a leader in a data-driven society.

Studies previously conducted on behalf of the European Commission (e.g., [[Vickery]]) shed light on the importance of having data findable and available in machine readable format in order to stimulate its reuse. This vision led to several legislative actions to reduce barriers and promote data sharing, such as the Open Data Directive [[OPENDATA-DIR]], which turned out to be a driving force towards a more transparent and fair access to government data.

With this regard, the wide range of (open) data portals developed by European public administrations is the result of this mission. These Web-based interfaces allow access to data by providing users means to explore a catalogue of datasets. To facilitate the sharing, discovery and re-use of the data beyond the (open) data portal, common agreements for the exchange of catalogues of datasets are needed. These interoperability agreements enable to connect (open) data catalogues into a pan-european catalogue of datasets.

The DCAT Application Profile specifies the generic agreements for (open) data portals operated by public administrations in Europe. This specification extends DCAT-AP with additional requirements for describing statistical data.

The current document is the result of the major semantic change release process described in the Change and Release Management Policy for DCAT-AP [[DCAT-AP-CRMP]] and was built starting from StatDCAT-AP version 1.0.1 [[StatDCAT-AP-20190528]], with the purpose of aligning it with DCAT-AP version 3.x.x [[DCAT-AP-3]] and with the latest development in statistical metadata standards such as SDMX [[SDMX]].

This work has been carried out in the context of the European Commission’s Interoperable Europe initiative [[INTEROPERABLE-EUROPE]].

Background

Collecting, compiling, analysing and publishing statistical data is a long-standing method to support decision making. Statistical data is available via high-end quality data publishing platforms as well as in the form of ad hoc created tabular data. It should be noted that the statistical data domain was one of the first data domains that provided open and transparent access to its data.

This value has been recognised: statistical information has been identified as “high value dataset” in the G8 Open Data Charter [[G8ODC]] and in its EU implementation [[EU-G8ODC]]. This statement was confirmed in the Commission’s notice 2014/C 240/01 [[CN-GUIDELINES]], elaborating the results of the online consultation launched by the Commission in August 2013 on the revision to the PSI (Public Sector Information) Directive [[PSI]]. According to the feedback received, statistical data was identified as one of the thematic dataset categories among those “in highest demand from re-users across the EU”.

At the same time, Open Data Portals (ODPs) are being established throughout Europe by EU Member States. On the European level, the European Data Portal (EDP) [[EDP]] became operational in November 2015. Statistical data is of great interest for all the data categories in such open data portals and therefore it is beneficial for references to statistical datasets to be prominently visible in such data portals.

Open data portals bring together metadata and descriptions of datasets that are hosted by data providers. The portals harvest the metadata that is publicly exposed by providers from their content management systems in a standard exchange format. This standard metadata exchange format is known as the DCAT (Data Catalog Vocabulary) Application Profile for data portals in Europe (DCAT-AP) [[DCAT-AP]], developed under the aegis of the European Commission’s ISA (Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations) Programme [[ISA]].

Through 2015, activities focused on the scoping of the work on StatDCAT-AP. Preliminary work was done by a Core Working Group with representation from Eurostat, Publications Office, DG CONNECT and representatives of ISA supported by the contractor’s experts. That earlier work included definition of some terminology (data vs. metadata), an analysis of the statistical data publishing field and an analysis of standards for publishing statistical data and metadata. A conceptual mapping of SDMX (Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange) to DCAT-AP was also undertaken both on the metadata level (assessing “reference" metadata created by Eurostat using the Euro-SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS) [[ESMS]] as the standardised structure definition for creating data set descriptions) and on the data level (assessing how "structural" metadata can be derived from the data structure definition). In addition, the metadata properties used in statistical data portals were evaluated. All the terms used in this document including “reference metadata” and “structural metadata” are presented in Section 3.

Objectives

The DCAT-AP is intended as a common layer for the exchange of metadata for a wide range of dataset types. The availability of such a common layer creates the opportunity for a wide range of professional communities to hook onto the emerging landscape of interoperable portals by aligning with the common exchange format. In addition to the basic DCAT-AP, specific communities can extend the basic Application Profile to support description elements specific for their particular data.

The development of a DCAT-AP extension for the exchange of metadata for statistical datasets, called StatDCAT-AP, is in line with that approach, first by determining which description elements in statistical data standards can be exposed in the DCAT- AP format, and second by extending the DCAT-AP with descriptive elements that can further help in the discovery and use of statistical data sets.

The work on StatDCAT-AP is a first activity in the context of a wider roadmap of activities that aim to deliver specifications and tools that enhance interoperability between descriptions of statistical data sets within the statistical domain and between statistical data and open data portals. This roadmap, outlined in the next section, includes several activities that will take place over a longer period.

The work on the specification of the StatDCAT-AP contained in this document extended over a period of eight months from November 2015 through June 2016 and covered a set of initial activities. Considering the time and resource constraints, the ambition in this first phase was to achieve concrete results that would act as a demonstration and a reality check for the roadmap.

The overall objective of this first phase of work is summarised in the following charter:

The StatDCAT-AP activity is a first step in a roadmap that aims to enhance interoperability between descriptions of statistical data sets and general data portals, facilitating referencing of statistical data with other open data.

The concrete objective of the work was to develop and reach consensus on an Application Profile of the Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) to be used for the description of statistical data sets with an initial focus on discovery of those data sets in a wider context.

The StatDCAT-AP is based on the DCAT Application Profile for Data Portals in Europe (DCAT-AP). In addition, initial guidelines on the extraction of relevant metadata from the existing implementation at Eurostat and possibly others will be elaborated in order to enable the export of metadata conforming to the application profile from existing data.

Based on the contributions of the main stakeholders, extensions to DCAT-AP can be proposed with descriptive elements particularly useful for discovery of statistical data sets beyond the possibilities offered by the generic DCAT-AP.

The work in this phase will concentrate on use cases that improve the discovery of statistical data sets published in open data portals across European institutions and EU Member States and in particular in the European Open Data Portal, as well as use cases that facilitate the integration of statistical data sets with open data from other domains.

The participants in this work had the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from the statistical domain and with experts from the open data community, contributing and sharing their knowledge and experience with the current implementations of the statistical data standards, and were able to gain insight into possible approaches by which statistical data can be better disclosed outside of the statistical domain.

Roadmap

The wider roadmap involves several steps as listed here:

Connecting descriptions of statistical datasets with general open data portals through a common basic exchange format, i.e. the StatDCAT-AP;
Developing guidelines for the extraction of metadata from specific implementations of statistical standards towards the common exchange format;
Harmonising implementations of statistical standards towards a more coherent landscape of statistical resources, possibly as an extension of the basic StatDCAT profile (for the metadata level) and through the use of W3C Resource Description Framework (RDF) Data Cube Vocabulary (for the data level);
Creating a set of tools to facilitate automatic extraction and validation of metadata from data described by statistical standards into StatDCAT-AP;
Conducting practical pilots to test and verify the proposed approaches and solutions.

This application profile covers the first two points of the roadmap.

Scope of the Application Profile

The objective of this work is to produce an updated release of StatDCAT-AP based on requests for change coming from real-world implementations of the specification and an alignment with [[DCAT-AP-3]] and [[SDMX]].

As [[[DCAT-AP-3]]], the Application Profile specified in this document is based on the specification of the Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT). DCAT is originally developed under the responsibility of the Government Linked Data Working Group [[GLD]] at W3C, and was significantly revised in 2020 by the W3C Dataset Exchange Working Group [[DXWG]]. DCAT is an RDF [[RDF11-CONCEPTS]] vocabulary designed to facilitate interoperability between data catalogues published on the Web.

The objective of this work is to produce an extension of [[DCAT-AP-3]] based on numerous requests for change coming from real-world implementations ....

The work does not cover implementation issues like mechanisms for exchange of data and expected behaviour of systems implementing the Application Profile other than what is defined in the Conformance Statement in section [[[#conformance]]].

The Application Profile is intended to facilitate data exchange and therefore the classes and properties defined in this document are only relevant for the data to be exchanged; there are no requirements for communicating systems to implement specific technical environments. The only requirement is that the systems can export and import data in RDF in conformance with this Application Profile.

As mentioned in the context, the prime objective of the Application Profile is to enhance data findability and promote reusability. To achieve this goal, datasets should be coherently documented. To enable this, the Application Profile considers several essential aspects, including among others:

Understanding the data or service structure, and how to get access to the data
Information on scope or purpose of the data
Legal information
Knowledge on data publishers, and any other agents involved
Knowledge of data availability and change policies

These are addressed with the aim to facilitate effective data reuse, allowing users to locate, understand and utilise the available data resources more efficiently.

DCAT-AP context

Around 2010, on behalf of the European Commission the access to public sector information was studied. These studies showed that businesses and citizens faced many difficulties in finding and reusing public sector information. The studies indicated that the availability of the information in a machine-readable format as well as a thin layer of commonly agreed metadata could facilitate data cross-reference and interoperability and therefore considerably enhance its value for reuse. Therefore, to overcome these hurdles, the European Commission invested in policies [[PSI]], data interoperability [[SEMIC]] and infrastructure [[DEU]].

Interoperable Europe, within its mission to stimulate the data interoperability in Europe, manages this specification on the metadata agreements for sharing dataset descriptions between data portals. The governance is taken care by the SEMIC action within Interoperable Europe. Initially, the scope of the specification was the exchange between Open Data Portals in Europe. Although this is still at the core of the specification, DCAT-AP is not limited to publicly accessible Open Data, but can be applied to any kind of datasets. In the past decade, DCAT-AP has grown from a single specification to a whole ecosystem of related and interconnected specifications.

Revision history

The first StatDCAT-AP specification was released in 2016 [[statdcat-ap-20161215]], with a minor update in 2019 [[statdcat-ap-20190528]]. In 2026, StatDCAT-AP was updated to version 3.0.0, aligning it with DCAT-AP version 3.0.1. This document is the combination of this alignment and addressing issues raised by the community.

Meeting minutes

The following webinars have been held for the creation of this release

Working group 1 - 12 February 2026 (Meeting Minutes, recording, slides)

Terminology

Application Profile: A specification that re-uses terms from one or more base standards, adding more specificity by identifying mandatory, recommended and optional elements to be used for a particular application, as well as recommendations for controlled vocabularies to be used.
Catalogue: A curated collection of metadata about datasets.
Catalogue record: A set of statements about the description of a dataset in the catalogue, e.g. providing information about when a dataset was entered in the catalogue or when its description was modified.
Data Cube Vocabulary: A W3C Recommendation [[vocab-data-cube-20140116]] that specifies an RDF vocabulary designed to facilitate publication of multi-dimensional data, such as statistics, on the Web in such a way that it can be linked to related datasets and concepts.
Data Portal: A Web-based system that contains a data catalogue with descriptions of datasets and provides services enabling discovery and re-use of the datasets.
Dataset: A collection of data, published or curated by a single source, and available for access or download in one or more formats.
DCAT – Data Catalog Vocabulary: A W3C Recommendation [[vocab-dcat-3-20240822]] that specifies an RDF vocabulary designed to facilitate interoperability between data catalogues published on the Web.
Distribution: A specific available form of a dataset. If a dataset is published in multiple formats (e.g. Excel, CSV, Data Cube) these are described as separate distributions.
Data Structure Definition: Set of structural metadata associated to a dataset, which includes information about how concepts are associated with the measures, dimensions, and attributes of a data cube, along with information about the representation of data and related descriptive metadata.
EU Vocabularies – Metadata Registry: The EU Vocabularies mini-site (often referred to as “Metadata Registry”) [[EUV]] maintains definition data (metadata elements, named authority lists, schemes, etc.) used by the different European Institutions involved in the legal decision-making process gathered in the Interinstitutional Metadata Maintenance Committee (IMMC). EU Vocabularies is hosted and managed by the Publications Office of the EU.
Metadata Structure Definition: Specification of the allowed content of a metadata set in terms of attributes for which content is to be provided and to which type of object the metadata pertain.
Reference metadata: Metadata describing the contents and the quality of the statistical data.
SDMX: International Standard (ISO 17369:2013) [[SDMX]] that provides an integrated approach to facilitating Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX), enabling interoperable implementations within and between systems concerned with the exchange, reporting and dissemination of statistical data and related metadata.
SDMX cross-domain concepts: Set of standard concepts, covering structural and reference metadata, which should be used in several statistical domains wherever possible to enhance possibilities of the exchange of data and metadata between organisations.
Structural metadata: Metadata that identify and describe data and reference metadata.
URI – Uniform Resource Identifier: An Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC) [[rfc3986]] specifying a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource. URIs on the Web are a subset of URLs and are often called HTTP URIs.
URL – Uniform Resource Locator: An IETF Request for Comments (RFC) [[rfc1738]] specifying the syntax and semantics of formalized information for location and access of resources via the Internet.

Used prefixes

Prefix	Namespace IRI
`adms`	`http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#`
`cnt`	`http://www.w3.org/2011/content#`
`dcat`	`http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#`
`dcatap`	`http://data.europa.eu/r5r/`
`dct`	`http://purl.org/dc/terms/`
`dctype`	`http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/`
`dqv`	`http://www.w3.org/ns/dqv#`
`foaf`	`http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/`
`locn`	`http://www.w3.org/ns/locn#`
`odrl`	`http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl/2/`
`org`	`http://www.w3.org/ns/org#`
`owl`	`http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#`
`prov`	`http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#`
`rdf`	`http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#`
`rdfs`	`http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#`
`sdmx-attribute`	`http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/attribute#`
`skos`	`http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#`
`stat`	`http://data.europa.eu/s1n/`
`spdx`	`http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#`
`time`	`http://www.w3.org/2006/time#`
`vcard`	`http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#`
`xsd`	`http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#`

Main Entities

The main entities are those that form the core of the Application Profile. The properties and their associated constraints that apply in the context of this profile are listed in a tabular form. Each row corresponds to one property. In addition to the constraints also cross-references are provided to DCAT. To save space, the following abbreviations are used to indicate in short the difference with DCAT:

A: reused as-is defined and expressed in DCAT-AP, or if it has been reused as-is from DCAT in case the property was not explicitly mentioned in DCAT-AP
E: reused with additional usage notes or additional restrictions compared to DCAT-AP (or DCAT)
P: StatDCAT-AP profile specific extension where DCAT-AP had no requirements earlier on specified

This reuse qualification assessement is w.r.t. a specific version of DCAT. Therefore it may vary over time when new versions of DCAT-AP are created.

Agent

Definition: Any entity carrying out actions with respect to the entities Catalogue and the Catalogued Resources.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: If the Agent is an organisation, the use of the Organization Ontology is recommended.
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: name , type .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
name	Literal	1..*	A name of the agent.	This property can be repeated for different versions of the name (e.g. the name in different languages).	A
type	Concept	0..1	The nature of the agent.		A

Annotation

Definition: The class for Web Annotations.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Attribute property

Definition: The class of components which represent attributes of observations in the cube, e.g. unit of measurement
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Catalogue

Definition: A catalogue or repository that hosts the Datasets or Data Services being described.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: applicable legislation , catalogue , creator , dataset , description , geographical coverage , has part , homepage , language , licence , modification date , publisher , record , release date , rights , service , temporal coverage , themes , title .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
applicable legislation	Legal Resource	0..*	The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Catalogue.		A
catalogue	Catalogue	0..*	A catalogue whose contents are of interest in the context of this catalogue.		A
creator	Agent	0..1	An entity responsible for the creation of the catalogue.		A
dataset	Dataset	0..*	A Dataset that is part of the Catalogue.	As empty Catalogues are usually indications of problems, this property should be combined with the property service to implement an empty Catalogue check.	A
description	Literal	1..*	A free-text account of the Catalogue.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description.	A
geographical coverage	Location	0..*	A geographical area covered by the Catalogue.		A
has part	Catalogue	0..*	A related Catalogue that is part of the described Catalogue.		A
homepage	Document	0..1	A web page that acts as the main page for the Catalogue.		A
language	Linguistic system	0..*	A language used in the textual metadata describing titles, descriptions, etc. of the Datasets in the Catalogue.	This property can be repeated if the metadata is provided in multiple languages.	A
licence	Licence Document	0..1	A licence under which the Catalogue can be used or reused.		A
modification date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The most recent date on which the Catalogue was modified.		A
publisher	Agent	1	An entity (organisation) responsible for making the Catalogue available.	In case multiple organisations are considered the publishers of the catalogue, it is recommended to use foaf:Group to bundle them into one entity.	A
record	Catalogue Record	0..*	A Catalogue Record that is part of the Catalogue.		A
release date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the Catalogue.		A
rights	Rights statement	0..*	A statement that specifies rights associated with the Catalogue.		A
service	Data Service	0..*	A site or end-point (Data Service) that is listed in the Catalogue.	As empty Catalogues are usually indications of problems, this property should be combined with the property dataset to implement an empty Catalogue check.	A
temporal coverage	Period of Time	0..*	A temporal period that the Catalogue covers.		A
themes	Concept Scheme	0..*	A knowledge organization system used to classify the Resources that are in the Catalogue.	This property refers to a knowledge organization system used to classify the Catalogue's Datasets. It must have at least the value NAL:data-theme as this is the mandatory controlled vocabulary for dcat:theme.	A
title	Literal	1..*	A name given to the Catalogue.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name.	A

Catalogue Record

Definition: A description of a Catalogued Resource's entry in the Catalogue.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: application profile , change type , description , language , listing date , modification date , primary topic , source metadata , title .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
application profile	Standard	0..*	An Application Profile that the Catalogued Resource's metadata conforms to.		A
change type	Concept	0..1	The status of the catalogue record in the context of editorial flow of the dataset and data service descriptions.		A
description	Literal	0..*	A free-text account of the record. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description.		A
language	Linguistic system	0..*	A language used in the textual metadata describing titles, descriptions, etc. of the Catalogued Resource.	This property can be repeated if the metadata is provided in multiple languages.	A
listing date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The date on which the description of the Resource was included in the Catalogue.		A
modification date	Temporal Literal	1	The most recent date on which the Catalogue entry was changed or modified.		A
primary topic	Catalogued Resource	1	A link to the Dataset, Data service or Catalog described in the record.	A catalogue record will refer to one entity in a catalogue. This can be either a Dataset or a Data Service. To ensure an unambigous reading of the cardinality the range is set to Catalogued Resource. However it is not the intent with this range to require the explicit use of the class Catalogued Record. As abstract class, an subclass should be used.	A
source metadata	Catalogue Record	0..1	The original metadata that was used in creating metadata for the Dataset, Data Service or Dataset Series.		A
title	Literal	0..*	A name given to the Catalogue Record.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name.	A

Catalogued Resource

Definition: Resource published or curated by a single agent.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: This class Catalogued Resource is an abstract class for DCAT-AP. Therefore only subclasses should be used in a data exchange.
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Checksum

Definition: A value that allows the contents of a file to be authenticated.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: This class allows the results of a variety of checksum and cryptographic message digest algorithms to be represented.
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: algorithm , checksum value .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
algorithm	Checksum Algorithm	1	The algorithm used to produce the subject Checksum.		A
checksum value	xsd:hexBinary	1	A lower case hexadecimal encoded digest value produced using a specific algorithm.		A

Data Service

Definition: A collection of operations that provides access to one or more datasets or data processing functions.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Subclass of
: Catalogued Resource
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: access rights , applicable legislation , conforms to , contact point , description , documentation , endpoint description , endpoint URL , format , keyword , landing page , licence , publisher , serves dataset , theme , title .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
access rights	Rights statement	0..1	Information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.		A
applicable legislation	Legal Resource	0..*	The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Data Service.		A
conforms to	Standard	0..*	An established (technical) standard to which the Data Service conforms.	The standards referred here SHOULD describe the Data Service and not the data it serves. The latter is provided by the dataset with which this Data Service is connected. For instance the data service adheres to the OGC WFS API standard, while the associated dataset adheres to the INSPIRE Address data model.	A
contact point	Kind	0..*	Contact information that can be used for sending comments about the Data Service.		A
description	Literal	0..*	A free-text account of the Data Service.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description.	A
documentation	Document	0..*	A page or document about this Data Service		A
endpoint description	Resource	0..*	A description of the services available via the end-points, including their operations, parameters etc.	The property gives specific details of the actual endpoint instances, while the property application profile (dct:conformsTo) is used to indicate the general standard or specification that the endpoints implement.	A
endpoint URL	Resource	1..*	The root location or primary endpoint of the service (an IRI).		A
format	Media Type or Extent	0..*	The structure that can be returned by querying the endpointURL.		A
keyword	Literal	0..*	A keyword or tag describing the Data Service.		A
landing page	Document	0..*	A web page that provides access to the Data Service and/or additional information.	It is intended to point to a landing page at the original data service provider, not to a page on a site of a third party, such as an aggregator.	A
licence	Licence Document	0..1	A licence under which the Data service is made available.		A
publisher	Agent	0..1	An entity (organisation) responsible for making the Data Service available.		A
serves dataset	Dataset	0..*	This property refers to a collection of data that this data service can distribute.		A
theme	Concept	0..*	A category of the Data Service.	A Data Service may be associated with multiple themes.	A
title	Literal	1..*	A name given to the Data Service.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name.	A

Dataset

Definition: A conceptual entity that represents the information published.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: If a Dataset is used as part of a Dataset Series, the usage of the properties listed below must be coherent with the associated Dataset Series. For this usage, consult the guidelines in section [[[#UsageGuidelines]]].
Subclass of
: Catalogued Resource
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: access rights , applicable legislation , attribute , conforms to , contact point , creator , dataset distribution , description , dimension , documentation , frequency , geographical coverage , has version , identifier , in series , is referenced by , keyword , landing page , language , modification date , number of data series , other identifier , provenance , publisher , qualified attribution , qualified relation , quality annotation , related resource , release date , sample , source , spatial resolution , temporal coverage , temporal resolution , theme , title , type , unit of measurement , version , version notes , was generated by .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
access rights	Rights statement	0..1	Information that indicates whether the Dataset is publicly accessible, has access restrictions or is not public.		A
applicable legislation	Legal Resource	0..*	The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Dataset.		A
attribute	Attribute property	0..*	A component used to qualify and interpret observed values, e.g. units of measure, any scaling factors and metadata such as the status of the observation (e.g. estimated, provisional). Attribute is a "conceptual" entity that applies to all distribution formats, e.g. in case a dataset is provided both in SDMX and in DataCube.		P
conforms to	Standard	0..*	An implementing rule or other specification.		A
contact point	Kind	0..*	Contact information that can be used for sending comments about the Dataset.		A
creator	Agent	0..*	An entity responsible for producing the dataset.		A
dataset distribution	Distribution	0..*	An available Distribution for the Dataset.		A
description	Literal	1..*	A free-text account of the Dataset.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description.	A
dimension	Dimension property	0..*	A component that identifies observations, e.g. the time to which the observation applies , or a geographic region which the observation covers. Dimension is a"conceptual" entity that applies to all distribution formats, e.g. in case a dataset is provided both in SDMX and in DataCube.		P
documentation	Document	0..*	A page or document about this Dataset.		A
frequency	Frequency	0..1	The frequency at which the Dataset is updated.		A
geographical coverage	Location	0..*	A geographic region that is covered by the Dataset.		A
has version	Dataset	0..*	A related Dataset that is a version, edition, or adaptation of the described Dataset.		A
identifier	Literal	0..*	The main identifier for the Dataset, e.g. the URI or other unique identifier in the context of the Catalogue.		A
in series	Dataset Series	0..*	A dataset series of which the dataset is part.		A
is referenced by	Resource	0..*	A related resource, such as a publication, that references, cites, or otherwise points to the dataset.		A
keyword	Literal	0..*	A keyword or tag describing the Dataset.		A
landing page	Document	0..*	A web page that provides access to the Dataset, its Distributions and/or additional information.	It is intended to point to a landing page at the original data provider, not to a page on a site of a third party, such as an aggregator.	A
language	Linguistic system	0..*	A language of the Dataset.	This property can be repeated if there are multiple languages in the Dataset.	A
modification date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The most recent date on which the Dataset was changed or modified.		A
number of data series	xsd:integer	0..1	This property contains the number of data series contained in the Dataset	Cartesian Product of the number of modalities of each dimension, excluding what Data Cube calls the measure dimension (that denotes which particular measure is being conveyed by the observation). The numSeries is the actual number of series in the data set as referenced in the Distribution. This is usually less than the theoretical number calculated as the Cartesian Product (and sometimes significantly less). The actual number of series is, when combined with the dimension list, a useful indication of the detail of the data in the data set.	P
other identifier	Identifier	0..*	A secondary identifier of the Dataset	Examples are MAST/ADS [[MASTADS]], DOI [[DOI]], EZID [[EZID]] or W3ID [[W3ID]].	A
provenance	Provenance Statement	0..*	A statement about the lineage of a Dataset.		A
publisher	Agent	0..1	An entity (organisation) responsible for making the Dataset available.		A
qualified attribution	Attribution	0..*	An Agent having some form of responsibility for the resource.		A
qualified relation	Relationship	0..*	A description of a relationship with another resource.		A
quality annotation	Annotation	0..*	This property links to a statement related to quality of the Dataset, including rating, quality certificate, feedback that can be associated to the Dataset.		P
related resource	Resource	0..*	A related resource.		A
release date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the Dataset.		A
sample	Distribution	0..*	A sample distribution of the dataset.		A
source	Dataset	0..*	A related Dataset from which the described Dataset is derived.		A
spatial resolution	xsd:decimal	0..*	The minimum spatial separation resolvable in a dataset, measured in meters.		A
temporal coverage	Period of Time	0..*	A temporal period that the Dataset covers.		A
temporal resolution	xsd:duration	0..1	The minimum time period resolvable in the dataset.		A
theme	Concept	0..*	A category of the Dataset.	A Dataset may be associated with multiple themes.	A
title	Literal	1..*	A name given to the Dataset.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name.	A
type	Concept	0..*	A type of the Dataset.	A recommended controlled vocabulary data-type is foreseen.	A
unit of measurement	Concept	0..*	A unit of measurement of the observations in the dataset, for example Euro, square kilometre, purchasing power standard (PPS), full-time equivalent, percentage. Unit of measurement is a "conceptual" entity that applies to all distribution formats, e.g. in the case when a dataset is provided both in SDMX and in Data Cube.		P
version	Literal	0..1	The version indicator (name or identifier) of a resource.		A
version notes	Literal	0..*	A description of the differences between this version and a previous version of the Dataset.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the version notes.	A
was generated by	Activity	0..*	An activity that generated, or provides the business context for, the creation of the dataset.		A

Dataset Series

Definition: A collection of datasets that are published separately, but share some characteristics that group them.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: It is recommended to avoid Dataset Series without a dataset in the collection. Therefore at least one Dataset should refer to a Dataset Series using the property in series (dcat:inSeries).
Subclass of
: Catalogued Resource
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: applicable legislation , contact point , description , frequency , geographical coverage , modification date , publisher , release date , temporal coverage , title .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
applicable legislation	Legal Resource	0..*	The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Dataset Series.		A
contact point	Kind	0..*	Contact information that can be used for sending comments about the Dataset Series.		A
description	Literal	1..*	A free-text account of the Dataset Series.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions. It is recommended to provide an indication about the dimensions the Dataset Series evolves.	A
frequency	Frequency	0..1	The frequency at which the Dataset Series is updated.	The frequency of a dataset series is not equal to the frequency of the dataset in the collection.	A
geographical coverage	Location	0..*	A geographic region that is covered by the Dataset Series.	When spatial coverage is a dimension in the dataset series then the spatial coverage of each dataset in the collection should be part of the spatial coverage. In that case, an open ended value is recommended, e.g. EU or a broad bounding box covering the expected values.	A
modification date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The most recent date on which the Dataset Series was changed or modified.	This is not equal to the most recent modified dataset in the collection of the dataset series.	A
publisher	Agent	0..1	An entity (organisation) responsible for ensuring the coherency of the Dataset Series	The publisher of the dataset series may not be the publisher of all datasets. E.g. a digital archive could take over the publishing of older datasets in the series.	A
release date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the Dataset Series.	The moment when the dataset series was established as a managed resource. This is not equal to the release date of the oldest dataset in the collection of the dataset series.	A
temporal coverage	Period of Time	0..*	A temporal period that the Dataset Series covers.	When temporal coverage is a dimension in the dataset series then the temporal coverage of each dataset in the collection should be part of the temporal coverage. In that case, an open ended value is recommended, e.g. after 2012.	A
title	Literal	1..*	A name given to the Dataset Series.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name.	A

Dimension property

Definition: The class of components which represent the dimensions of the cube
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Distribution

Definition: A physical embodiment of the Dataset in a particular format.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: access service , access URL , applicable legislation , availability , byte size , checksum , compression format , description , documentation , download URL , format , has policy , language , licence , linked schemas , media type , modification date , packaging format , release date , rights , spatial resolution , status , temporal resolution , title , type .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
access service	Data Service	0..*	A data service that gives access to the distribution of the dataset.		A
access URL	Resource	1..*	A URL that gives access to a Distribution of the Dataset.	The resource at the access URL may contain information about how to get the Dataset.	A
applicable legislation	Legal Resource	0..*	The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Distribution.		A
availability	Concept	0..1	An indication how long it is planned to keep the Distribution of the Dataset available.		A
byte size	xsd:nonNegativeInteger	0..1	The size of a Distribution in bytes.		A
checksum	Checksum	0..1	A mechanism that can be used to verify that the contents of a distribution have not changed.	The checksum is related to the downloadURL.	A
compression format	Media Type	0..1	The format of the file in which the data is contained in a compressed form, e.g. to reduce the size of the downloadable file.	It SHOULD be expressed using a media type as defined in the official register of media types managed by IANA.	A
description	Literal	0..*	A free-text account of the Distribution.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description.	A
documentation	Document	0..*	A page or document about this Distribution.		A
download URL	Resource	0..*	A URL that is a direct link to a downloadable file in a given format.		A
format	Media Type or Extent	0..1	The file format of the Distribution.		A
has policy	Policy	0..1	The policy expressing the rights associated with the distribution if using the [[ODRL]] vocabulary.		A
language	Linguistic system	0..*	A language used in the Distribution.	This property can be repeated if the metadata is provided in multiple languages.	A
licence	Licence Document	0..1	A licence under which the Distribution is made available.		A
linked schemas	Standard	0..*	An established schema to which the described Distribution conforms.		A
media type	Media Type	0..1	The media type of the Distribution as defined in the official register of media types managed by IANA.		A
modification date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The most recent date on which the Distribution was changed or modified.		A
packaging format	Media Type	0..1	The format of the file in which one or more data files are grouped together, e.g. to enable a set of related files to be downloaded together.	It SHOULD be expressed using a media type as defined in the official register of media types managed by IANA.	A
release date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the Distribution.		A
rights	Rights statement	0..*	A statement that specifies rights associated with the Distribution.		A
spatial resolution	xsd:decimal	0..1	The minimum spatial separation resolvable in a dataset distribution, measured in meters.		A
status	Concept	0..1	The status of the distribution in the context of maturity lifecycle.	It MUST take one of the values Completed, Deprecated, Under Development, Withdrawn.	A
temporal resolution	xsd:duration	0..1	The minimum time period resolvable in the dataset distribution.		A
title	Literal	0..*	A name given to the Distribution.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description.	A
type	Resource	0..1	Type of the Distribution.	This property links to a type of the Distribution, e.g. that it is a visualisation	P

Kind

Definition: A description following the vCard specification, e.g. to provide telephone number and e-mail address for a contact point.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: Note that the class Kind is the parent class for the four explicit types of vCard (Individual, Organization, Location, Group).
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Licence Document

Definition: A legal document giving official permission to do something with a resource.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: type .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
type	Concept	0..*	A type of licence, e.g. indicating 'public domain' or 'royalties required'.		A

Location

Definition: A spatial region or named place.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: It can be represented using a controlled vocabulary or with geographic coordinates. In the latter case, the use of the Core Location Vocabulary is recommended, following the approach described in the GeoDCAT-AP specification.
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: bbox , centroid , geometry .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Reuse
bbox	Literal	0..1	The geographic bounding box of a resource.	A
centroid	Literal	0..1	The geographic center (centroid) of a resource.	A
geometry	Geometry	0..1	The corresponding geometry for a resource.	A

Relationship

Definition: An association class for attaching additional information to a relationship between DCAT Resources.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: had role , relation .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
had role	Role	1..*	A function of an entity or agent with respect to another entity or resource.		A
relation	Resource	1..*	A resource related to the source resource.		A

Supportive Entities

The supportive entities are supporting the main entities in the Application Profile. They are included in the Application Profile because they form the range of properties.

Activity

Definition: 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.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Attribution

Definition: Attribution is the ascribing of an entity to an agent.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Checksum Algorithm

Definition: Algorithm for Checksums.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Concept

Definition: An idea or notion; a unit of thought.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: In DCAT-AP, a Concept is used to denote codes within a codelist. In section [[[#controlled-vocs]]] the expectations are elaborated in more detail.
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: preferred label .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
preferred label	Literal	1..*	A preferred label of the concept.	This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the label.	A

Concept Scheme

Definition: An aggregation of one or more SKOS concepts.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: In DCAT-AP, a Concept Scheme is used to denote a codelist. In section [[[#controlled-vocs]]] the expectations are elaborated in more detail.
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: title .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
title	Literal	1..*	A name of the concept scheme.	May be repeated for different versions of the name	A

Document

Definition: A textual resource intended for human consumption that contains information, e.g. a web page about a Dataset.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Frequency

Definition: A rate at which something recurs, e.g. the publication of a Dataset.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Geometry

Definition: The locn:Geometry class provides the means to identify a location as a point, line, polygon, etc. expressed using coordinates in some coordinate reference system.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Identifier

Definition

This is based on the UN/CEFACT Identifier class.

Reference in DCAT-AP

Link

Usage Note

An identifier in a particular context, consisting of the

content string that is the identifier;
an optional identifier for the identifier scheme;
an optional identifier for the version of the identifier scheme;
an optional identifier for the agency that manages the identifier scheme.

Properties

For this entity the following properties are defined: notation .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Usage	Reuse
notation	Literal	1	A string that is an identifier in the context of the identifier scheme referenced by its datatype.		A

Legal Resource

Definition: This class represents the legislation,policy or policies that lie behind the Rules that govern the service.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: The definition and properties of the Legal Resource class are aligned with the ontology included in "Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Legislation Identifier (ELI)". For describing the attributes of a Legal Resource (labels, preferred labels, alternative labels, definition, etc.) we refer to the (ELI) ontology. In this data specification the use is restricted to instances of this class that follow the (ELI) URI guidelines.
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Linguistic system

Definition: A system of signs, symbols, sounds, gestures, or rules used in communication, e.g. a language.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Literal

Definition: A literal value such as a string or integer; Literals may be typed, e.g. as a date according to xsd:date. Literals that contain human-readable text have an optional language tag as defined by BCP 47 [[rfc5646]].
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Media Type

Definition: A file format or physical medium.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Media Type or Extent

Definition: A media type or extent.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Period of Time

Definition: An interval of time that is named or defined by its start and end dates.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: For this entity the following properties are defined: beginning , end , end date , start date .

Property	Range	Card	Definition	Reuse
beginning	Time instant	0..1	The beginning of a period or interval.	A
end	Time instant	0..1	The end of a period or interval.	A
end date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The end of the period.	A
start date	Temporal Literal	0..1	The start of the period.	A

Policy

Definition: A non-empty group of Permissions and/or Prohibitions.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Provenance Statement

Definition: A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of a resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Resource

Definition: Anything described by RDF.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Rights statement

Definition: A statement about the intellectual property rights (IPR) held in or over a resource, a legal document giving official permission to do something with a resource, or a statement about access rights.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Role

Definition: A role is the function of a resource or agent with respect to another resource, in the context of resource attribution or resource relationships.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Usage Note: Note it is a subclass of skos:Concept.
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Standard

Definition: A standard or other specification to which a resource conforms.
Reference in DCAT-AP: Link
Properties: This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

	Class	Definition
	Temporal Literal	rdfs:Literal encoded using the relevant [[ISO8601]] Date and Time compliant string and typed using the appropriate XML Schema datatype (xsd:gYear, xsd:gYearMonth, xsd:date, or xsd:dateTime).
	Time instant	A temporal entity with zero extent or duration.
	xsd:dateTime	Object with integer-valued year, month, day, hour and minute properties, a decimal-valued second property, and a boolean timezoned property.
	xsd:decimal	Decimal represents a subset of the real numbers, which can be represented by decimal numerals. The ·value space· of decimal is the set of numbers that can be obtained by multiplying an integer by a non-positive power of ten, i.e., expressible as i × 10^-n where i and n are integers and n >= 0.
	xsd:duration	Duration represents a duration of time. The ·value space· of duration is a six-dimensional space where the coordinates designate the Gregorian year, month, day, hour, minute, and second components defined in § 5.5.3.2 of [[ISO8601]], respectively.
	xsd:hexBinary	Hex-encoded binary data. The ·value space· of hexBinary is the set of finite-length sequences of binary octets.
	xsd:integer	Integer is ·derived· from decimal by fixing the value of ·fractionDigits· to be 0 and disallowing the trailing decimal point. This results in the standard mathematical concept of the integer numbers. The ·value space· of integer is the infinite set {...,-2,-1,0,1,2,...}. The ·base type· of integer is decimal.
	xsd:nonNegativeInteger	Number derived from integer by setting the value of minInclusive to be 0.

Controlled Vocabularies

Requirements for controlled vocabularies

The following is a list of requirements that were identified for the controlled vocabularies to be recommended in this Application Profile. Controlled vocabularies SHOULD:

Be published under an open licence.
Be operated and/or maintained by an institution of the European Union, by a recognised standards organisation or another trusted organisation.
Be properly documented.
Have labels in multiple languages, ideally in all official languages of the European Union.
Contain a relatively small number of terms (e.g. 10-25) that are general enough to enable a wide range of resources to be classified.
Have terms that are identified by URIs with each URI resolving to documentation about the term.
Have associated persistence and versioning policies.

These criteria do not intend to define a set of requirements for controlled vocabularies in general; they are only intended to be used for the selection of the controlled vocabularies that are proposed for this Application Profile.

Expected usage of controlled vocabularies

To increase the interoperability, the value spaces of properties can be further harmonised using shared controlled vocabularies. This kind of restriction may be subject to a varying interpretation on what the expected usage of a controlled vocabulary is. To ensure a common interpretation the following expectations are defined:

The property MUST use as range values codes from {codelist}
This expectation results in that the value space is closed under the codelist. Validation systems SHOULD produce errors. All profiles in the ecosystem MUST avoid conflicts by creating subproperties.
The property MUST have at least one value from {codelist}
This expectation makes the value space minimally constrained. Validation systems SHOULD produce warnings. All profiles in the ecosystem MUST adopt this interpretation in case they want to restrict the value space. Adopting the former expectation will lead to cross-profile interpretations challenges.
The property IS RECOMMENDED to use as range values codes from {codelist}
The value space is closed under the codelist, but other values are tolerated. Recommending means expressing a strong preference. To make this stronger direction towards harmonisation visible in the data exchanges, validation systems SHOULD produce warnings.
The property MAY use as range values codes from {codelist}
The value space is closed under the codelist, but other values are accepted. This expectation is more a hint to be used. As there is no obligation nor strongly suggestion expressed here, the use of other codelists is valid is all cases. Therefore validation systems MAY produce warnings but users are free to ignore them. No validation in this case is also acceptable.

The first two (and preferably also the others) SHOULD only be used for requirements that can be verified by a machine. If the validation can only be realised with the involvement of humans, then a less strong requirement (RECOMMMENDED or MAY) is used, even if the intention is to be very strict. This is to ensure that the provided SHACL representations correspond closely to all use cases possible. Stronger enforcements are left for implementations as they have control on actual data exchange.

Controlled vocabularies to be used

The tables below show the usage of the codelists with the expected qualification.

Properties with controlled vocabularies that MUST be used for the listed properties

Property URI	Used for Class	Vocabulary name	Usage note
dcat:mediaType	Distribution	IANA Media Types
dct:accrualPeriodicity	Dataset,Dataset Series	EU Vocabularies Frequency Named Authority List
dct:format	Distribution,Data Service	EU Vocabularies File Type Named Authority List
dct:language	Catalogue,Dataset, Catalogue Records, Distribution	EU Vocabularies Languages Named Authority List
dct:type	Distribution	EU Vocabularies Distribution type
adms:status	Distribution	EU Vocabularies Distribution Status
dcatap:availability	Distribution	Distribution availability vocabulary	The list of terms for the avalability levels of a dataset distribution in the DCAT-AP specification.
spdx:algorithm	Checksum	Checksum algorithm members	The members listed are considered a controlled vocabulary of supported checksum algorithms.
compression format	Distribution	IANA Media Types	The members listed are considered a controlled vocabulary of supported compression formats.
packaging format	Distribution	IANA Media Types	The members listed are considered a controlled vocabulary of supported compression formats.

Properties with AT LEAST 1 value from the controlled vocabularies

Property URI	Used for Class	Vocabulary name	Usage note
dcat:theme	Dataset, Data Service	Dataset Theme Vocabulary	The values to be used for this property are the URIs of the concepts in the vocabulary.

Properties with a RECOMMENDED use of controlled vocabularies

Property URI	Used for Class	Vocabulary name	Usage note
dct:type	Agent	ADMS publisher type vocabulary	The list of terms in the ADMS publisher type vocabulary is included in the ADMS specification
dct:type	Licence Document	ADMS licence type vocabulary	The list of terms in the ADMS licence type vocabulary is included in the ADMS specification
dct:accessRights	Dataset, Data Service	Access Rights Named Authority List	Use one of the following values (:PUBLIC, :RESTRICTED, :NON_PUBLIC).

Properties with MAY use a controlled vocabularies

Property URI	Used for Class	Vocabulary name	Usage note
dct:publisher	Catalogue,Dataset,Dataset Series,Data Service	EU Vocabularies Corporate bodies Named Authority List	The Corporate bodies NAL must be used for European institutions and a small set of international organisations. In case of other types of organisations, national, regional or local vocabularies should be used.
dct:spatial	Catalogue,Dataset,Dataset Series	EU Vocabularies Continents Named Authority List, EU Vocabularies Countries Named Authority List, EU Vocabularies Places Named Authority List, Geonames	The EU Vocabularies Name Authority Lists must be used for continents, countries and places that are in those lists; if a particular location is not in one of the mentioned Named Authority Lists, Geonames URIs must be used.
dct:type	Dataset	Dataset-type authority table	This list of terms provide types of datasets. Its main scope is to support dataset categorisation of the EU Open Data Portal.

Other controlled vocabularies

In addition to the proposed common controlled vocabularies, which are mandatory to ensure minimal interoperability, implementers are encouraged to publish and to use further region or domain-specific vocabularies that are available online. While those may not be recognised by general implementations of the Application Profile, they may serve to increase interoperability across applications in the same region or domain. Examples are the full set of concepts in EuroVoc, the CERIF standard vocabularies, the Dewey Decimal Classification and numerous other schemes.

Agent Roles

The first version of DCAT Application Profile [[vocab-dcat-1]] had a single property to relate an Agent (typically, an organisation) to a Dataset. The only such ‘agent role’ that could be expressed in that version of the profile is through the property publisher, defined as “An entity responsible for making the dataset available”. A second property is available in that DCAT recommendation [[vocab-dcat-1]], contact point, defined as “Link a dataset to relevant contact information which is provided using vCard”, but this is not an agent role as the value of this property is contact data, rather than a representation of the organisation as such. In specific cases, for example in exchanging data among domain-specific portals, it may be useful to express other, more specific agent roles. In such cases, extensions to DCAT-AP may be defined using additional properties with more specific meanings.

Two possible approaches have been discussed, particular in the context of the development of the domain-specific GeoDCAT Application Profile [[geodcat-ap]]. The first possible approach is based on the use of a predicate vocabulary that provides a set of properties that represent additional types of relationships between Datasets and Agents. For example, properties could be defined, such as foo:owner, foo:curator or foo:responsibleParty, in addition to the use of existing well-known properties, such as dct:creator and dct:rightsHolder. A possible source for such additional properties is the Roles Named Authority List maintained by the Publications Office of the EU. Other domain-specific sources for additional properties are the INSPIRE Responsible Party roles ,the Library of Congress’ MARC relators and DataCite’s contributor types. To enable the use of such properties, they must be defined as RDF properties with URIs in a well-managed namespace. GeoDCAT-AP has introduced a number of specific properties.

A second approach is based on the use of W3C’s PROV ontology [[prov-o]] which provides a powerful mechanism to express a set of classes, properties, and restrictions that can be used to represent and interchange provenance information generated in different systems and under different contexts. In the context of work on GeoDCAT-AP, a PROV-conformant solution for expressing agent roles was agreed. This solution uses prov:qualifiedAttribution in combination with a dct:type assertion pointing to the code list for Responsible Party Role in the INSPIRE registry. To enable the use of such types, they must be defined with URIs in a well-managed namespace.

Based on the experience gained with the use of domain-specific extensions for additional ‘agent roles’ in the exchange of information about Datasets and on the requests of implementors and stakeholders, the DCAT Application Profile release 2.0.0 is extended with additional roles as proposed by DCAT Version 2 [[vocab-dcat-2]] that have proven to be useful across domains. Precisely, properties creator, qualified attribution and qualified relation have been added to Dataset class to further facilitate relationships between datasets and agents.

In the most recent DCAT Version 3 [[vocab-dcat-3]] a dedicated section on the relationship with Agents is provided. The DCAT-AP guidelines for Agents Roles are conformant to this.

As a technical note: While both approaches represent equivalent effort for publishers of datasets and editors of the specifications overall, their governance models differ. For the first approach using direct properties, the relationship definition occurs within the profile/extension. The governance is external for the second approach using codelists. This may lead to unwanted overhead, e.g. to manage mappings between the distinct codelists different profiles may use. The impact between both is primary operational on querying the data catalogue. Direct properties support simple queries. Codelists necessitate complex queries, often extended with dynamic mapping logic between the external lists.

It should be noted that, even if the second approach is used in a particular implementation, the provision of information using dct:publisher for the Catalogue is still mandatory under the rules laid down in the Conformance Statement in section [[[#conformance]]], while the provision of information using dct:publisher is strongly recommended for Dataset. The provision of such information using dct:publisher will ensure interoperability with implementations that use the basic approach of DCAT-AP. As long the first approach is actively be used, the second approach is thus limited for use to a profile specific context. For that reason, it is recommended to use the direct properties including the ones defined by GeoDCAT-AP such as custodian, distributor, originator, principalInvestigator, processor, resourceProvider in favor of the second approach using the prov:qualifiedAttribution.

General usage guidelines

Usage guide on Datasets, Distributions and Data Services

The introduction of Data Services as first class citizens in DCAT 2.0 raised questions about the usage of Data Services and Distributions. This section provides a guideline for publishers: what to consider as a Distribution and what as a Data Service.

A first distinction between distributions and data services is their dependency on a dataset for their existence. A distribution cannot exist without its dataset. It is a specific representation of a dataset (cfr definition W3C Distribution). Whereas a data service is an entity in its own right. It provides access to datasets or it provides data processing functions. The independence also holds between the distributions of a dataset, and the data service which provides access to that dataset. The distributions are not required to be the result of the data service operations. However, they may.

Many of the properties of distributions are file oriented (downloadURL, format, byte size, checksum, modification date, ...). The relevance of this information is reduced for data services, related information is present in a very different form and thus under different terminology. For instance, data services do and can provide format transformations, language transformations and schema transformations on request. Also the handling of trust is different. While tampering of downloadable content is detected by e.g. checksums, data services create often a trusted channel using security measures such as authentication and encryption. This reduces the need for additional trust checks on the data.

The difference between downloading a file or accessing the data through a service have resulted in the following guidelines:

Datasets are the conceptual entity denoting a collection of data.
Distributions are specific representations of a dataset, described with the intend to facilitate the delivery of the data as file to a reuser. The access URL (preferably download URL) will provide a simple way to obtain (download) the content of the dataset in the representation specified by the distribution. The obtained (downloaded) content is fully determined by the publisher of the distribution. Only after obtaining the data the (re)user can change the data according to its needs.
Anything that has not the intend to provide a downloadable representation of a dataset is a data service. Data services offer smarter, more interactive ways to the data.

Orthogonal to the nature clarification of distributions and data services, there might be need for a granularity clarification between datasets and distributions. Commonly, at first sight, it is expected that all distributions of a dataset are identical in content, only differing in the representation of the data. But when considering dataset series, this interpretation seems not valid anymore. In the upcoming release of DCAT 3.0, dataset series and dataset versioning are addressed. Implementors are advised to already take this proposal into account when creating guidelines for distributions. Note that this is less an issue between datasets and data services as both are independent entities. Data services usually address the granularity by providing the necessary query interface language so that the user can get the data according its needs.

These guidelines will be able to capture many access patterns, corresponding to most users' expectations. However there might be cases that are more vague. In that case the DCAT(-AP) community can be questioned for a recommended approach.

Usage guide on Dataset Series

Dataset Series can be considered as message from the publisher that the data of a dataset evolves according to one or more dimensions and that this evolution is available via a collection of independent, yet closely related, datasets.

The need for sharing this grouping explicitly is strongly use case dependent, and therefore as this will require additional metadata management effort by the publisher, the use of Dataset Series is optional. It should fit the objectives. For instance, if a publisher is sharing an active updated dataset accessible via an API, that provides current as historic data, then it is not mandatory to created metadata records for each snapshot per year. Only if these snapshots are created intentionally and the publisher wants to share the life cycle of them with the public, then Dataset Series come into the picture.

In order to harmonise the use of Dataset Series, the following guidelines are to be considered:

To introduce a Dataset Series only if the publisher has the intend to manage a collection of datasets. Dataset Series with a single dataset in the collection should be avoided.
Dataset Series without a dataset in the collection should be avoided. In that case, publishers should ensure that the metadata, in particular, the life cycle metadata is up to date. For instance, if dataset get retracted and as consequence the collection becomes empty, then publishers should consider to retract also the Dataset Series. In case, publishers use persistent identifiers, then this should be reflected in the status of the Dataset Series.
A Dataset Series is an conceptual dataset without distributions. When interpreting a Dataset Series as a Dataset, then it is expected that the directly associated Distributions contain the data that is the union of all Datasets in the collection. But the presence of these Distributions raise semantical conflicts such as whether the property of the Dataset Series frequency refers to the update frequency of the associated Distributions or the update frequency of the collection. To avoid these semantical conflicts, it is recommended not to associate distributions with a Dataset Series.
The members of a Dataset Series should be described in such a way that without the knowledge of the Dataset Series, the metadata is interpreted correctly. The existence of a dataset should not be based on the membership in a Dataset Series. The interpretation of a member with its associated Distributions and Data Services is conform the above guidelines.
Whenever a Data Service is providing access to all the data of a Dataset Series, i.e. the union of all datasets in the collection of the Dataset Series, then the Data Service may refer to the Dataset Series using serves dataset. The ensures that whenever in the future the Dataset Series is extended with new Datasets the Data Service description does not need to be adapted. In that case the Dataset Series should also be considered as a GEODCAT-AP Dataset.
Keep the usage simple. Complex nesting such as Dataset Series being a member of Dataset Series, or Dataset belonging to multiple Dataset Series are to be handled with care. While from a data knowlegde graph these nestings are feasible and not so problematic, it must be realised that these complicate the presentation on a webpage. Since data portal representations are the main communication from metadata owners to potential data consumers and there is no clear expectations on how to present the members of a Dataset Series in a UI (e.g. because orderning is not imposed), GeoDCAT-AP users may not expect from other portals which harvest and process their Dataset Series, that these are more than a collection of Datasets. Any interpretation, such as the collection is ordered, or grouped according to time or any wellknown dimension, is a specific expectation beyond the agreemenents made in GeoDCAT-AP.
Conceptually, a Dataset Series is a special kind of Dataset. It is recommended to apply the same metadata quality of Datasets to Dataset Series (see [[[#quick-reference]]] ). The dedicated usage guidelines for Dataset Series and the Dataset members of a Dataset Series take priority over the generic GeoDCAT-AP Dataset guidelines.

In general it is expected that the members of Dataset Series are strongly connected. However, there are no common criteria or rules how this connection could be determined. Usually, the shared characteristics are expressed as a data domain, e.g. the population of bees, and some evolution in space and time, e.g. in Greece for the period of 2019-2023, and published by a single publisher. Nevertheless, other characteristics could give raise to the creation of a Dataset Series.

The DCAT-AP Working Group has investigated to find and express unique characteristics of Datasets that are members of a Dataset Series. Over time, during the exchanges it became clear that today no consensus exists on restricting the use of Dataset Series to a more limited use. Therefore the DCAT-AP Working Group has decided to retract the notion of a Dataset Member of a Dataset Series (a subclass of DCAT-AP Datasets). Profile builders may reintroduce this notion when they want to express specific constraints for that usage scope.

In case the connection is very strong or the result of an automated process, versioning terminology is a natural way to express the connection between the Datasets in the Dataset Series collection. For guidelines on expressing versioning information in DCAT-AP, consult the DCAT guidelines on versioning. As versioning is not always the most appropriate terminology, DCAT introduces properties (e.g. next, previous, inSeries, last, etc.) to interconnect the Dataset Series with its members and among the members themselves. It is recommended to use always these properties in combination with Dataset Series, and versioning when appropriate.

The membership in a Dataset Series may influence the (descriptive) metadata to highlight differences from other Datasets in the collection. For instance, a usual adaption is the addition of the release data in the title.

Mapping SDMX to StatDCAT-AP

Scope

The scope of this section is to describe the mapping of StatDCAT-AP to the SDMX Information Model. This is achieved by means of schematic diagrams of the SDMX Information Model and also by a worked example where the SDMX-ML content is mapped to the classes and properties of DCAT-AP.

The intent of this mapping is twofold:

It enables organisations using SDMX to know which metadata structures to use in order to generate DCAT-AP compliant messages directly from their SDMX metadata repositories (such as an SDMX Registry).
It enables organisations that intend to use SDMX-ML structural metadata as format for the Transformation Mechanism (described in Annex V of this specification) to map SDMX-ML elements or attributes to DCAT-AP classes or properties.

Diagrams

Schematic map of SDMX Classes to DCAT-AP. This diagram highlights the high-level SDMX classes that provide the metadata required by StatDCAT-AP and their correspondences to DCAT-AP entities.

This is a schematic diagram of those high level classes in the SDMX Information Model that provide the metadata required by StatDCAT-AP.

A narrative explanation is:

The DCAT Catalogue is mapped to an SDMX Category Scheme. The Category can link to any other structural metadata object in SDMX using a Categorisation. The Categorisation provides the link, i.e. the Categorisation references both the object and the Category to which it is linked. Two Categories are present in the Category Scheme representing the DCAT-Catalogue, one for linking the Dataflows, and one for linking the Category Scheme containing the topic themes. There will be multiple Categorisations, each one linking the object (e.g. Dataflow) to the relevant Category. Therefore, for instance, there will be one Categorisation for each Dataflow, each Categorisation referencing the same Category. In this way all of the Dataflows that are contained in the catalogue are linked to the same Category.
The StatDCAT-AP Dataset maps to the SDMX Dataflow.
Dimension and Attribute in the StatDCAT-AP Dataset map to Dimension and Attribute in the SDMX Data Structure
The DCAT Category Scheme maps to the SDMX Category Scheme. However, it should be noted that this Category Scheme will be different from the one that contains the DCAT Catalogue. The Categories in this Category Scheme are the topics or themes that categorise the type of data. Each Category links to the Dataflows that are relevant to the topic by means of a Categorisation. A Dataflow may be linked to many such topics (Categories) and a topic (Category) can be linked to many Dataflows.
The DCAT Distribution maps to the SDMX Provision Agreement which links a Data Provider with a Dataflow. The Data Provider and the Dataflow have a many-to- many association, each one-to-one association is represented as a Provision Agreement. The actual data source for one Data Provider and its linked Dataflow is the Registered Data Source linked to the Provision Agreement. The URL of the Registered Data Source is a link to a data source, which can be a URL that resolves to an actual set of data or it may be a URL to a web service that can be queried for the data. SDMX makes a distinction between the two.
The DCAT Agent maps to the SDMX Agency which is the “Maintenance Agency” for the metadata such as the Dataflow. Note that in SDMX the Maintenance Agency is maintained in a different scheme from the Data Provider. So, the Data Provider is a different construct from the Agency. In SDMX the Data Provider (of the actual data) can be different from the Maintenance Agency of the metadata describing the data (the SDMX Dataflow): they may both have the same Id but are different entities.

DCAT-AP Model mapped to SDMX Model Classes. This figure shows the same mapping as Figure 1 but from the perspective of the DCAT-AP model.

Example

Introduction

This example shows how the SDMX structural metadata are mapped to the DCAT-AP classes and properties. The mapping shows the XML instances of the structural metadata authored in an SDMX Registry and exported as SDMX‑ML.

Metadata Used in the Mapping Example. This shows the schematic diagram of the high level SDMX classes and the content of these for the instance of these classes used in the examples that follow.

A narrative explanation is:

The SDMX Category Scheme containing the DCAT Catalogue has two Categories: one called TOPIC_SCHEMES, linking to the DCAT Category Scheme of MDR Themes; and one called DATASETS, linking to all the DCAT Datasets (in SDMX this is a Dataflow) listed in the Catalogue.
In the example two Dataflows are present: DF_HC58 (Census Hub Hypercube 58) and Cens01_neisco (Census data by education and occupation). Both are maintained by Eurostat (Agency=ESTAT). DF_HC58 shows how a Category can link to multiple Dataflows, while Cens01_neisco is used for the detailed mapping of SDMX to the StatDCAT‑AP classes - Dataset, Distribution, Category Scheme, Agent.
The Dataflow is linked to the Data Structure CENS_01_NEISCO, which has a number of Dimensions including Age, Sex, Geography and one Attribute, Observation Status.
The SDMX Category Scheme containing the statistical themes has the name MDR Themes in the example.
The Provision Agreement containing the DCAT Distribution in the example is named Census by Education and Occupation and links the Data Provider (ESTAT) to the Dataflow Cens01_neisco. The URL of the Registered Data Source is a link to a web service that can be queried for the data.
The SDMX Agency containing the DCAT Agent is ESTAT. The Data Provider is a different construct from the ESTAT Agency, but in this example it is given use the same ID (ESTAT).
The URL in the Registered Data Source (http://www.ec.europa.eu/eurostat/SDMX/diss-web/rest) is the dcat:accessURL in the DCAT Distribution.

SDMX Annotations

SDMX does not support some of the mandatory or recommended properties of DCAT-AP. However, SDMX has an extensibility mechanism called Annotations. Annotations can be added to any SDMX object that can be identified.

SDMX XML schema specification for `Annotation`.

In the examples that follow, the following elements are used:

AnnotationTitlecontains the DCAT‑AP property
AnnotationType contains the value StatDCAT‑AP indicating that this is a StatDCAT‑AP property.
AnnotationURL is a URI
AnnotationText is a text value (this can occur many times to support multilingual values)

Explanation of the mapping diagrams

In all cases the mapping is shown between the DCAT-AP property and the location of the property in an SDMX XML message. Table 1 under the mapping diagram maps the DCAT-AP properties to the corresponding SDMX XML elements or attributes. In all cases the SDMX message is a <Structure> message (i.e. the start tag is the <Structure> element)
e.g.
In Table 1 the additional StatDCAT-AP properties are shown in turquoise.
e.g.

Data Catalogue

SDMX-DCAT mapping example for the DCAT Catalogue

Table 1 DCAT-AP properties mapped to the corresponding SDMX XML elements or attributes
DCAT-AP Property	SDMX Element or Element.Attribute
`dct:description`	Description
`dct:publisher`	CategoryScheme.agencyID
`dct:title`	Name
`foaf:homepage`	AnnotationTitle
`dct:license`	AnnotationTitle

Linking to Categories using Categorisations

Schematic

Example

DCAT-AP Property	SDMX Element or Element.Attribute
`dcat:dataset`	Source/Ref.id (id of the Dataflow) Source/Ref.agencyId (agency of the Dataflow) Source/Ref.version (version of the Dataflow) Target/Ref.id (id of the Category) Target/maintainableParentId (id of the Category Scheme that is the DCAT-AP Catalogue) Target/agencyId (agency of the Category Scheme) Target/version (version of the Category Scheme)
`dcat:themeTaxonomy`	Source/Ref.id (id of the Dataflow) Source/Ref.agencyId (agency of the Dataflow) Source/Ref.version (version of the Dataflow) Target/Ref.id (id of the Category) Target/maintainableParentId (id of the Category Scheme that is the DCAT-AP Category Scheme) Target/agencyId (agency of the Category Scheme) Target/version (version of the Category Scheme)

Dataset

DCAT-AP Property	SDMX Element or Element.Attribute
`dcat:distribution`	AnnotationURL
`dcat:keyword`	AnnotatationText
`dct:publisher`	Dataflow.agencyID
`dcat:theme`	AnnotationURL
`stat:numSeries`	AnnotationText
`stat:statUnitMeasure`	AnnotationURL
`dct:description`	Description
`dct:title`	Name

Linking a Dataflow to the SDMX Category (Topic)

This links the Dataflow cens_01neisco version 1.0 maintained by ESTAT to the Category SOCI in the Category Scheme representing the MDR Themes (MDR_THEMES). This (SDMX) Category is the map to the dcat:theme.

Property and Attribute Property
The URL must resolve to a qb:dimension or qb:attribute.

Quality Annotation
If required as SDMX structural metadata this will be an Annotation in the Dataflow

SDMX to DCAT mapping example for the StatDCAT-AP Annotation

Distribution

DCAT-AP Property	SDMX Element or Eelement.Attribute
`dct:description`	Description
`dct:format`	AnnotationText
`dct:license`	AnnotationText

Linking a Distribution (accessURL) to the SDMX Provision Agreement

DCAT-AP Property	SDMX Element or Element.Attribute
`dcat:accessURL`	QueryableDataSource/DataURL

Agent

DCAT-AP Property	SDMX Element or Eelement.Attribute
`dcat:contactPoint`	Contact/Name Contact/Telephone Contact/Email

Summary

The mapping above is the recommended mapping between SDMX classes and attributes and DCAT-AP classes and properties. Clearly, an organisation is free to use whatever input source(s) it wishes, including a mixture of sources. The use of SDMX Annotations to curate the DCAT-AP properties is a recommendation for those organisations that wish to use 100% SDMX structural metadata for this mapping. In order to achieve interoperability between systems, StatDCAT-AP will specify a controlled vocabulary for the AnnotationTitle (this contains the DCAT-AP property).

SDMX-BASED TRANSFORMATION MECHANISM

Scope of this section

The scope of this section is to describe a mechanism intended to assist statistical organisations to create StatDCAT-AP messages without the need for the organisation to understand the syntax and rules of DCAT-AP. This mechanism is referred to as here the “Transformation Mechanism”.

Whilst any organisation is free to choose whichever mechanism it prefers in order to create and publish DCAT-AP RDF, it is the intention that the Transformation Mechanism described here will be provided in the form of tools that an organisation can use to convert an XML file based on SDMX-formatted structures (SDMX-ML) into DCAT-AP.

The intent of this Transformation Mechanism is to assist organisations that do not wish to invest in resources to understand RDF technologies and vocabularies and thus to encourage organisations to use DCAT-AP to publish the content of their open data. Whilst the two formats used in this Transformation Mechanism will be familiar to organisations already using SDMX, the Metadata Set variant of the format is a very simple XML structure and it should therefore be easy for organisations with general XML skills to create the metadata required from their own metadata sources, even if they do not use SDMX.

The Transformation Mechanism is first explained. This is followed by an example of the mapping of the input format used by the Transformation Mechanism to the DCAT-AP properties.

Transformation mechanism

The essence of this mechanism is shown in the following diagram and explanation.

Diagram of the flow of metadata though the Intermediary Mechanism

The structural metadata required to populate the DCAT-AP can be derived from many types of source. The sources may be multiple and may include a maintained structural metadata repository which could be an SDMX-compliant source such as an SDMX Registry.

The metadata required for the intermediary format may be made available either as SDMX structural metadata or as an SDMX metadata set. Both of these options are described later in this section.

The metadata provided is read by a “Data Reader” which understands the format of the metadata stream (i.e. SDMX structural metadata or SDMX metadata set), and makes these metadata available to a Data Writer via an API that is conformant to the SDMX Common Component Architecture. The Data Writer creates the DCAT-AP output. Therefore, the Transformation Mechanism comprises two Data Readers (one for each of the two formats) and one Data Writer. It should be noted that under the SDMX Common Component Architecture, the Data Reader and the Data Writer are totally independent from each other and so any Data Reader can supply data to any Data Writer. Thus the Data Readers and Writers can be integrated into an organisation’s system or can be built easily into transformation tools. There are a number of SDMX validation and transformation tools that can be extended to use these two Data Readers and the DCAT-AP Data Writer.

Transformation input formats

Choice of mechanisms

It is the responsibility of the user system to extract the metadata from the metadata source(s) and write the metadata to the relevant transformation input format. So, the question that requires an answer is “why, then, not just create DCAT-AP directly?”

Of course if an organisation can create DCAT-AP messages directly from its own systems, then it should do so. However, if an organisation is not comfortable with this direct approach (e.g., because it does not have RDF skills, or it already has SDMX systems in place and is more familiar with SDMX formats) then the Transformation Mechanism is an attractive approach as it uses SDMX formats and has built-in validation procedures ensuring that the metadata are DCAT-AP-compliant.

SDMX Structural Metadata

The format is an SDMX Structure Message. The mapping of SDMX to DCAT-AP has been described in Annex I of this specification and examples of the mapping are also given in that Annex.

However, there is one difference between the mapping given in Annex I and the format used in the Transformation Mechanism. This concerns the accessURL of the DCAT Distribution. In SDMX the Registration element is not an output in the SDMX Structure Message, it is an output in the SDMX Registry Interface Message. Therefore, for the purpose of this transformation this metadata is represented as an Annotation in the Provision Agreement.

So, taking the example from Annex I:

From Section 9 - Linking a Distribution (accessURL) to the SDMX Provision Agreement

Using the Transformation Mechanism the output is the following:

Transformation format - Linking a Distribution (accessURL) to the SDMX Provision Agreement

So, the full example of the Provision Agreement will look like this:

Example of a Provision Agreement for DCAT-AP Distribution

The full example of the Structure Message is shown in Annex III.

It is a simple software development to create an extract process from an SDMX Registry to create the SDMX format required for the Transformation Mechanism, as the relevant metadata can be retrieved using SDMX web services which are supported already by an SDMX Registry.

SDMX Metadata Set

Structure

A Metadata Set represents metadata for some or all of the DCAT Classes and Properties as Metadata Attributes. The structure of a Metadata Set is defined by a Metadata Structure Definition (MSD). The MSD contains all of the information required to structure the content of a Metadata Set in terms of:

For each Metadata Attribute:

the Concept used (i.e. the DCAT-AP Class or Property);
the valid content (e.g. a Code List, text, URL, integer, no content etc.); and
child Metadata Attributes if a hierarchy is specified.

The MSD also specifies the type of object (class) to which the metadata pertains, such as an SDMX Dataflow. The identification of the actual instance (e.g., an actual Dataflow) is contained in the Metadata Set together with the content of the Metadata Attributes.

A schematic of the MSD is shown below.

Schematic diagram of the SDMX Metadata Structure Definition model

A schematic representation of the Metadata Set is shown below.

Schematic diagram of the SDMX Metadata Set

The green boxes represent the content of the Metadata Set. The MSD is not a part of the Metadata Set but both the MSD and the Report Structure are identified in the Metadata Set. The Id of the Metadata Attribute is contained in the Reported Attribute thus enabling the structure and content of the Reported Attribute to be validated. The Metadata Target contains the Id of SDMX structural component to which the metadata pertains. In the example the target is the SDMX Category Scheme that represents the DCAT-AP Catalogue.

Example MSD

Note that this MSD is not finalised. At the moment is contains the Mandatory and Recommended properties of DCAT-AP, and the extensions added by StatDCAT-AP.

Each DCAT-AP class and StatDCAT-AP class are top level Metadata Attributes in the MSD. The properties of the class are the child Metadata Attributes. Additional hierarchies are defined where appropriate (e.g., in DCAT_DATASET the CONTACT_POINT has two child Metadata Attributes).

The Metadata Attributes representing the DCAT-AP classes are for grouping purposes which enable the transformation software to determine to which DCAT-AP class the metadata pertains. They have no content themselves but have child Metadata Attributes. The following picture shows some examples of the type of valid content that can be specified.

Example of Metadata Attribute Specification

The examples above show:

DCAT_DISTRIBUTION is used for grouping purposes only and so no actual value is reported in a Metadata Set.
accessURL is mandatory if DCAT_DISTRIBUTION information is present; in this case its valid representation is XHTML.
Contact Point can occur many times; if this information is available CONTACT_PHONE is optional while CONTACT_EMAIL is mandatory.

Note that a code list may be specified as the valid representation, in which case the value of the reported attribute in the Metadata Set must be a code in the assigned code list. There is no example of this in the Figure 27 above.

Example of Metadata Report

The following SDMX Metadata Set Report shows how the DCAT-AP metadata are represented in a Metadata Set structured according to the MSD.

SDMX catalogue metadata pertaining to the DCAT-AP Catalogue

SDMX category scheme metadata pertaining to the DCAT-AP Catalogue

SDMX dataset metadata pertaining to the DCAT-AP Catalogue including StatDCAT-AP extensions to the Dataset.

SDMX distribution metadata pertaining to the DCAT-AP Catalogue including StatDCAT-AP extensions to the Distribution

It is possible to create a Metadata Set for any or all of the DCAT-AP classes to be supported by StatDCAT-AP. Therefore, an entire catalogue can be published including all its associated Datasets, Distributions, Category Schemes., and Agents. Alternatively, metadata may be added to an existing Catalogue incrementally.

Advantages and disadvantages of the two transformation formats

SDMX Structure Message

Advantages

Familiar to organisations using SDMX
Can be generated easily from an SDMX Registry

Disadvantages

The XML can be complex and verbose
Annotations cannot be
- coded (representation is restricted to text and URL)
- hierarchical (but there is a mechanism to achieve this)
- validated by SDMX validators (e.g. check that Title is valid)
- given mandatory and optional status (all Annotations are optional)
Such messages could create unnecessary “noise” when exchanging structural metadata with other organisations if this is the source of the metadata in an SDMX Registry-compliant metadata source

However

It is possible to use the MSD for the Metadata Set option to validate that the content of the structural metadata is complete and that the Annotation metadata is correct (e.g. text representing a coded value can be validated against a code list) and that the correct hierarchy is built in DCAT-AP.

SDMX Metadata Set

Advantages

Simple XML structure
Attributes can be:
- assigned any type of representation (e.g. coded, text, HTML, Boolean etc.);
- hierarchical;
- validated; and
- assigned mandatory or optional usage status.
The Metadata Set Report can reference any object that can be identified (e.g., Dataflow, Provision Agreement, Category Scheme)
Is separate from the structural metadata so does not affect the structural metadata components
If present, a Metadata Attribute can be “presentational”, just giving structure to child attributes

Disadvantages

Not always well understood by SDMX users (may result in some reluctance to use this mechanism)
Not widely used

Summary

Whilst an organisation can choose to generate DCAT-AP directly from its own systems, having an intermediary Transformation Mechanism will be of benefit to some organisations. This will be particularly true for organisations already using SDMX.

SDMX FILES USED FOR THE EXAMPLES

SDMX Structural Metadata

In the following example, to avoid any ambiguity, instead of using keywords e.g DCAT-AP, URIs are used. For DCAT-AP, the URI: http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat# is used. For StatDCAT-AP, the URI http://data.europa.eu/s1n is used that corresponds to the namespace URI of StatDCAT-AP.

SDMX Structure XML (full example)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<mes:Structure xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
xmlns:xml="http://www.w3.org/XML/1998/namespace" 
xmlns:mes="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/message" 
xmlns:str="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/structure" 
xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common" 
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/message 
https://registry.sdmx.org/schemas/v2_1/SDMXMessage.xsd">
    <mes:Header>
        <mes:ID>IDREF169</mes:ID>
        <mes:Test>false</mes:Test>
        <mes:Prepared>2016-05-05T15:11:56</mes:Prepared>
        <mes:Sender id="FR"/>
        <mes:Receiver id="not_supplied"/>
    </mes:Header>
    <mes:Structures>
        <str:OrganisationSchemes>

DCAT Agent

<str:AgencyScheme id="AGENCIES" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.base.AgencyScheme=SDMX:AGENCIES(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="SDMX" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
    <com:Name xml:lang="en">SDMX Agency Scheme</com:Name>
    <str:Agency id="ESTAT" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.base.Agency=ESTAT">
    <com:Name xml:lang="en">Eurostat</com:Name>
    <str:Contact>
    <com:Name xml:lang="en">Dissemination</com:Name>
    <str:Telephone>+352431034320</str:Telephone>
    <str:Email>dissemination@ec.europa.eu</str:Email>
    </str:Contact>
    </str:Agency>
    </str:AgencyScheme>
</str:OrganisationSchemes>
<str:Dataflows>

DCAT Dataset

<str:Dataflow id="cens_01neisco" agencyID="ESTAT" version="1.0">
    <com:Annotations>
        <com:Annotation>
            <com:AnnotationTitle>http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#distribution</com:AnnotationTitle>
            <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n</com:AnnotationType>
            <com:AnnotationURL>urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.registry.ProvisionAgreement=ESTAT:AT-  NEISCO(1.0)</com:AnnotationURL>
        </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle> http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
        <com:AnnotationText>Population</com:AnnotationText>
    </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle> http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
        <com:AnnotationText>Austria</com:AnnotationText>
    </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle> http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
        <com:AnnotationText>Census</com:AnnotationText>
    </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle> http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#theme</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>     <com:AnnotationURL>urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).SOC</com:AnnotationURL>
    </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle>stat:numSeries</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
        <com:AnnotationText>106850</com:AnnotationText>
    </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle>stat:statUnitMeasure</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
        <com:AnnotationURL>http://example.com/measures/percentage</com:AnnotationURL>
    </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle>dqv:hasQualityAnnotation</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
        <com:AnnotationURL>http://qualifications.org/QualityCertificate1</com:AnnotationURL>
    </com:Annotation>
    <com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle>oa:hasBody</com:AnnotationTitle>
        <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
        <com:AnnotationURL>http://qualifications.org/QualityCertificate1/body</com:AnnotationURL>
    </com:Annotation>
</com:Annotations>
<com:Name xml:lang="de">Bevölkerung im Alter zwischen 15 und 74 Jahren nach Geschlecht, Altersklasse, erreichtes Bildungsniveau (ISCED 1997) und Beruf (ISCO-88)</com:Name>
<com:Name xml:lang="fr">Population âgée de 15 à 74 ans, par sexe, groupe d'âge, niveau d'instruction (ISCED 1997) et profession (CITP-88)</com:Name>
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Population by education and occupation</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">Population aged 15-74 by sex, age group, educational attainment (ISCED 1997) and occupation (ISCO 1988)</com:Description>
<str:Structure>
    <Ref id="CENS_01_NEISCO" package="datastructure" class="DataStructure" agencyID="ESTAT" version="1.0"/>
</str:Structure>
</str:Dataflow>

DCAT Catalogue

<str:CategoryScheme id="DCAT_CATALOGUE" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:DCAT_CATALOGUE(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="ESTAT" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
<com:Annotations>
    <com:Annotation>
         <com:AnnotationTitle> http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#dataset</com:AnnotationTitle>
         <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
<com:AnnotationURL>urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.datastructure.Dataflow=ESTAT:DF_HC58(1.0)</com:AnnotationURL>
</com:Annotation>
<com:Annotation>
       <com:AnnotationTitle>foaf:homepage</com:AnnotationTitle>
       <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
       <com:AnnotationURL>http://ec.europa.eu/DataCatalogue</com:AnnotationURL>
</com:Annotation>
<com:Annotation>
        <com:AnnotationTitle>dct:license</com:AnnotationTitle>
       <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
       <com:AnnotationText xml:lang="en">Free to use provided Eurostat is acknowledged as the  source</com:AnnotationText>
</com:Annotation>
</com:Annotations>
 <com:Name xml:lang="en">DCAT Catalogue for Eurostat Data Sets</com:Name>
<str:Category id="DATASETS" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:DCAT_CATALOGUE(1.0).DATASETS">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Links to Data Sets (Dataflows)</com:Name>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="TOPIC_THEMES" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:DCAT_CATALOGUE(1.0).TOPIC_THEMES">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Links to Topic (Category) Schemes</com:Name>
</str:Category>
</str:CategoryScheme>

DCAT Category Scheme

<str:CategoryScheme id="MDR_THEMES" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="ESTAT" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">MDR Themes</com:Name>
<str:Category id="AGRI" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).AGRI">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Agriculture, fisheries, forestry and food</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as agriculture, fisheries, forestry or food.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="ECON" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).ECON">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Economy and finance</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as economy or finance.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="EDUC" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).EDUC">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Education, culture and sport</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as education, culture or sport.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="ENER" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).ENER">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Energy</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering the domain of energy.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="ENVI" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).ENVI">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Environment</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering the domain of environment</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="GOVE" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).GOVE">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Government and public sector</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as government or public sector.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="HEAL" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).HEAL">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Health</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering the domain of health.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="INTR" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).INTR">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">International issues</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering the domain of international issues.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="JUST" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).JUST">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Justice, legal system and public safety</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as justice, legal system or public safety.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="REGI" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).REGI">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Regions and cities</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as regions or cities.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="SOCI" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).SOCI">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Population and society</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as population or society.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="TECH" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).TECH">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Science and technology</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as science or technology.</com:Description>
</str:Category>
<str:Category id="TRAN" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).TRAN">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Transport</com:Name>
<com:Description xml:lang="en">This concept identifies datasets covering such domains as transport</com:Description>
</str:Category>
</str:CategoryScheme>
</str:CategorySchemes>
<str:Categorisations>

Link between Dataflow and Category in the MDR Scheme of Topics

<str:Categorisation id="4880e39f-585a-4452-2403-4ea6806df530" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Categorisation=ESTAT:4880e39f-585a-4452-2403-4ea6806df530(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="ESTAT" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">4880e39f-585a-4452-2403-4ea6806df530</com:Name>
<str:Source>
<Ref id="cens_01neisco" package="datastructure" class="Dataflow" agencyID="ESTAT" version="1.0"/>
</str:Source>
<str:Target>
<Ref id="SOCI" maintainableParentID="MDR_THEMES" package="categoryscheme" class="Category" agencyID="ESTAT" maintainableParentVersion="1.0"/>
</str:Target>
</str:Categorisation>

Links between Dataflows and DATASET Category of the DCAT-Catalogue

<str:Categorisation id="5c96f6c8-67a3-805f-7a2b-81bee0e4f6f4" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Categorisation=ESTAT:5c96f6c8-67a3-805f-7a2b-81bee0e4f6f4(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="ESTAT" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">5c96f6c8-67a3-805f-7a2b-81bee0e4f6f4</com:Name>
<str:Source>
<Ref id="DF_HC58" package="datastructure" class="Dataflow" agencyID="ESTAT" version="1.0"/>
</str:Source>
<str:Target>
<Ref id="DATASETS" maintainableParentID="DCAT_CATALOGUE" package="categoryscheme" class="Category" agencyID="ESTAT" maintainableParentVersion="1.0"/>
</str:Target>
</str:Categorisation>
<str:Categorisation id="7ca03df9-a610-4cdc-3c1c-f8dbc7913cd4" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Categorisation=ESTAT:7ca03df9-a610-4cdc-3c1c-f8dbc7913cd4(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="ESTAT" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">7ca03df9-a610-4cdc-3c1c-f8dbc7913cd4</com:Name>
<str:Source>
<Ref id="cens_01neisco" package="datastructure" class="Dataflow" agencyID="ESTAT" version="1.0"/>
</str:Source>
<str:Target>
<Ref id="DATASETS" maintainableParentID="DCAT_CATALOGUE" package="categoryscheme" class="Category" agencyID="ESTAT" maintainableParentVersion="1.0"/>
</str:Target>
</str:Categorisation>

Link between DCAT-Catalogue and Category Scheme of Topics

<str:Categorisation id="LINK_TO_MDR_TOPICS" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Categorisation=ESTAT:LINK_TO_MDR_TOPICS(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="ESTAT" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
<com:Name xml:lang="en">Link to MDR Topics</com:Name>
<str:Source>
<Ref id="MDR_THEMES" package="categoryscheme" class="CategoryScheme" agencyID="ESTAT" version="1.0"/>
</str:Source>
<str:Target>
<Ref id="TOPIC_THEMES" maintainableParentID="DCAT_CATALOGUE" package="categoryscheme" class="Category" agencyID="ESTAT" maintainableParentVersion="1.0"/>
</str:Target>
</str:Categorisation>
</str:Categorisations>

DCAT Distribution

<str:ProvisionAgreements>
<str:ProvisionAgreement id="ESTAT-NEISCO" urn="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.registry.ProvisionAgreement=ESTAT:ESTAT-NEISCO(1.0)" isExternalReference="false" agencyID="ESTAT" isFinal="false" version="1.0">
<com:Annotations>
<com:Annotation>
       <com:AnnotationTitle> http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#:license</com:AnnotationTitle>
       <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
       <com:AnnotationText>Free to use provided Eurostat is acknowledged as the source</com:AnnotationText>
</com:Annotation>
<com:Annotation>
       <com:AnnotationTitle> http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#:accessURL</com:AnnotationTitle>
       <com:AnnotationType> http://data.europa.eu/s1n </com:AnnotationType>
       <com:AnnotationURL>http://www.ec.europa.eu/eurostat/SDMX/diss-web/rest/</com:AnnotationURL>
 </com:Annotation>
</com:Annotations>
 <com:Name xml:lang="en">Census by education and occupation</com:Name>
<com:Description>xml:lang="en">Census by education and occupation,sex, age (5-year groups)</com:Description>
<str:StructureUsage>
<Ref id="cens_01neisco" package="datastructure" class="Dataflow" agencyID="ESTAT" version="1.0"/>
</str:StructureUsage>
<str:DataProvider>
<Ref id="ESTAT" maintainableParentID="DATA_PROVIDERS" package="base" class="DataProvider" agencyID="ESTAT" maintainableParentVersion="1.0"/>
</str:DataProvider>
</str:ProvisionAgreement>
</str:ProvisionAgreements>
</mes:Structures>
</mes:Structure>

SDMX Metadata Set

Content

The section below describes the content of the Metadata Set, first in a synthetic view, followed by its SDMX-ML detailed representation.

Metadata Set - Start

<mes:MetadataSet structureRef="MDS2" setID="ba70fc24-f95b-4f0f-a2e2-658d993c2078">
    <com:Name xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">DCAT_CATALOGUE_1</com:Name>
    <gen:Report id="StatDCAT_Report" xmlns:gen="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/metadata/generic">
        <gen:Target id="CategorySchemeTARGET">
            <gen:ReferenceValue id="CategoryScheme">
                <gen:ObjectReference>
<URN>urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:DCAT_CATALOGUE(1.0)</URN>
                </gen:ObjectReference>
            </gen:ReferenceValue>
        </gen:Target>
        <gen:AttributeSet>

Followed by the Reported Attributes for the properties of the various DCAT-AP classes

Reported Attributes overview.

<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_CATALOGUE">
<com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:DCAT_CATALOGUE(1.0)">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:DCAT_CATALOGUE(1.0)&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
<gen:AttributeSet>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DATASET">
        <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.datastructure.Dataflow=ESTAT:cens_01neisco(1.0">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.datastructure.Dataflow=ESTAT:cens_01neisco(1.0&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DATASET">
        <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.datastructure.Dataflow=ESTAT:DF_HC58(1.0)">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.datastructure.Dataflow=ESTAT:DF_HC58(1.0)&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CATALOGUE_DESCRIPTION" value="Extended Description for DCAT Catalogue for Eurostat Data Sets"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CATALOGUE_PUBLISHER" value="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.base.Agency=ESTAT"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="TITLE" value="DCAT Catalogue for Eurostat Data Sets"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CATALOGUE_HOMEPAGE">
        <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="http://ec.europa.eu/DataCatalogue">http://ec.europa.eu/DataCatalogue&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="LANGUAGE" value="en"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CATALOGUE_LICENSE" value="Free to use provided Eurostat is acknowledged as the source"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CATALOGUE_THEME">
        <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0)">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0)&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>
    </gen:AttributeSet>
</gen:ReportedAttribute>

Category Scheme mapping illustration (Catalogue theme).

And so on...

<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_CATEGORY_SCHEME">
<com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0)">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.CategoryScheme=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0)&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
    <gen:AttributeSet>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CATEGORY_SCHEME_TITLE" value="MDR Themes"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_CATEGORY" value="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).AGRI">
            <gen:AttributeSet>
            <gen:ReportedAttribute id="PREFERRED_LABEL" value="Agriculture, fisheries, forestry and food"/>
            </gen:AttributeSet>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>
        gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_CATEGORY" value="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).ECON">
            <gen:AttributeSet>
            <gen:ReportedAttribute id="PREFERRED_LABEL" value="Economy and finance"/>
            </gen:AttributeSet>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_CATEGORY" value="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).EDUC">
            <gen:AttributeSet>
            <gen:ReportedAttribute id="PREFERRED_LABEL" value="Education, culture and sport"/>
            </gen:AttributeSet>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_CATEGORY" value="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).ENER">
            <gen:AttributeSet>
            <gen:ReportedAttribute id="PREFERRED_LABEL" value="Energy"/>
            </gen:AttributeSet>
        </gen:ReportedAttribute>

And so on...

ENERGY Metadata Attribute example.

<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_DATASET">
<gen:AttributeSet>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DATASET_DESCRIPTION" value="Extended description for Population aged 15-74 by sex, age group, educational attainment (ISCED 1997) and occupation (ISCO 1988)"/>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DATASET_TITLE" value="Population aged 15-74 by sex, age group, educational attainment (ISCED 1997) and occupation (ISCO 1988)"/>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="CONTACT_POINT" value="Dissemination">
    <gen:AttributeSet>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CONTACT_PHONE" value="+352431034320"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="CONTACT_EMAIL" value="dissemination@ec.europa.eu"/>
    </gen:AttributeSet>
</gen:ReportedAttribute>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DISTRIBUTION">
    <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.registry.ProvisionAgreement=ESTAT:AT-NEISCO(1.0)">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.registry.ProvisionAgreement=ESTAT:AT-NEISCO(1.0)&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
</gen:ReportedAttribute>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="KEYWORD" value="Population"/>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="KEYWORD" value="Austria"/>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="KEYWORD" value="Census"/>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DATASET_PUBLISHER" value="ESTAT"/>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DATASET_THEME">
    <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="http://urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).SOCI">http://urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.categoryscheme.Category=ESTAT:MDR_THEMES(1.0).SOCI&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
</gen:ReportedAttribute>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="NUM_SERIES" value="110259"/>
<gen:ReportedAttribute id="STAT_MEASURE">
    <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="http://example.com/measures/percentage">http://example.com/measures/percentage&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
</gen:ReportedAttribute>

Statistical unit measure mapping (example link to a unit measure URI).

<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_DISTRIBUTION">
<com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.registry.ProvisionAgreement=ESTAT:AT-NEISCO(1.0)">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.registry.ProvisionAgreement=ESTAT:AT-NEISCO(1.0)&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
<gen:AttributeSet>
    <gen:ReportedAttribute id="ACCESS_URL">
    <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="http://localhost:8080/FusionRegistry/ws/rest">http://localhost:8080/FusionRegistry/ws/rest&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
    </gen:ReportedAttribute>
    <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DISTRIBUTION_DESCRIPTION" value="Austria for Census by education and occupation"/>
    <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DISTRIBUTION_FORMAT" value="SDMX Data Structure Specific"/>
    <gen:ReportedAttribute id="DISTRIBUTION_LICENSE" value="Free to use provided Eurostat is acknowledged as the source"/>
</gen:AttributeSet>
</gen:ReportedAttribute>

Distribution metadata mapping (accessURL, format, license).

<gen:ReportedAttribute id="DCAT_AGENT">
    <com:StructuredText xml:lang="en" xmlns:com="http://www.sdmx.org/resources/sdmxml/schemas/v2_1/common">&lt;p>&lt;a href="urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.base.Agency=ESTAT">urn:sdmx:org.sdmx.infomodel.base.Agency=ESTAT&lt;/a>&lt;/p></com:StructuredText>
    <gen:AttributeSet>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="AGENT_NAME" value="Eurostat"/>
        <gen:ReportedAttribute id="AGENT_TYPE" value="Publisher"/>
    </gen:AttributeSet>
</gen:ReportedAttribute>
End of Metadata Set
        </gen:AttributeSet>
    </gen:Report>
</mes:MetadataSet>

EXAMPLES OF STATDCAT‑AP DESCRIPTIONS OF DATA CUBE DATASETS

RDF Example 1

Derived from https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-data-cube/#full-example

Show RDF Example 1

@prefix dcat:     <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#> .
@prefix dct:      <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> . 
@prefix eg:       <http://example.org/ns#> .
@prefix geonames: <http://sws.geonames.org/> . 
@prefix sdmx-dimension:  <http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/dimension#> .
@prefix sdmx-attribute:  <http://purl.org/linked-data/sdmx/2009/attribute#> .
@prefix stat:     <http://data.europa.eu/s1n/> .
@prefix theme:    <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/data-theme/> .
@prefix xsd:      <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

# -- Dataset --------------------------------------------

eg:dataset-le3 a dcat:Dataset ;
    dct:title       "Life expectancy"@en ;
    dct:description "Life expectancy within Welsh Unitary authorities - extracted from Stats Wales"@en ;
    dct:publisher   eg:organization ;
    dct:issued      "2010-08-11"^^xsd:date ;

# These four properties have been copied from the source metadata.

    dcat:theme
        theme:HEAL , # Health
        theme:REGI ; # Regions and cities

#   dct:subject 
#       sdmx-subject:3.2 ,      # regional and small area statistics
#       sdmx-subject:1.4 ,      # Health
#
# These subjects have been mapped to the MDR Data Theme NAL. Note that this is not a
# trivial mapping but may require specific mapping tables or owl:sameAs assertions.

    dct:spatial geonames:2634865 ; #Wales

#       ex-geo:wales;           # Wales
# The subject in the source mapped to dct:spatial and value from Geonames. Note again that 
# this may require specific mapping tables or owl:sameAs assertions.

    stat:dimension  eg:refArea ;
    stat:dimension  eg:refPeriod ;
    stat:dimension  sdmx-dimension:sex ;
    stat:attribute  sdmx-attribute:unitMeasure ;

# The values of these properties copied from the qb:attribute and qb:dimension properties
# in the source metadata.

    stat:statUnitMeasure <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Year> .

# The value of this property copied from the sdmx-attribute:unitMeasure property
# in the source metadata.

# -- Distribution -----------------------------------------

eg:distribution-le3 a dcat:Distribution ;
    dcat:accessURL  <http://example.org/file.rdf> ;
    dct:format      <http://publications.europa.eu/mdr/authority/file-type/RDF_TURTLE> .

# The format is not specified in the source metadata but added here for completeness.
# The URI for Distribution is declared in the eg: namespace – this was not specified in the 
# the source metadata as this did not describe the distribution separately.
# In addition, a link to a file is shown as value for dcat:accessURL which was not 
# specified in the source metadata.

# Note that the definitions of eg:organization, eg:refArea and eg:refPeriod have not been
# reproduced here. They are defined in the source metadata.

RDF Example 2

Derived from Digital Agenda Scoreboard Key Indicators metadata

Show RDF Example 2

@prefix adms:     <http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#> .
@prefix dad-prop: <http://semantic.digital-agenda-data.eu/def/property/> .
@prefix dcat:     <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#> .
@prefix dct:      <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
@prefix ns22:     <http://semantic.digital-agenda-data.eu/dataset/> .
@prefix ns25:     <http://ec.europa.eu/geninfo/legal_notices_en.htm#> .
@prefix ns26:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/access-right/> .
@prefix ns27:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/language/> .
@prefix ns28:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/corporate-body/> .
@prefix ns29:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/country/> .
@prefix ns30:     <http://semantic.digital-agenda-data.eu/dataset/digital-agenda-scoreboard-key-indicators/distribution/> .
@prefix ns31:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/data-theme/> .
@prefix ns33:     <http://purl.org/adms/status/> .
@prefix ns35:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/frequency/> .
@prefix ns38:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/file-type/> .
@prefix ns39:     <http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/distribution-type/> .
@prefix ns40:     <http://digital-agenda-data.eu/datasets/digital_agenda_scoreboard_key_indicators#> .
@prefix ns41:     <http://digital-agenda-data.eu/datasets/> .
@prefix stat:     <http://data.europa.eu/s1n/> .
@prefix vcard:    <http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#> .
@prefix xsd:      <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .

# ---- Dataset ----------------------------------------------------

ns22:digital-agenda-scoreboard-key-indicators a dcat:Dataset ;

    dct:title         "Digital Agenda Key Indicators" ;
    dct:description   "European Commission services selected more than 100 indicators..." ;
    dct:identifier    "digital-agenda-scoreboard-key-indicators" ;
    dct:issued        "2011-05-01T00:00:00Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    dct:modified      "2016-11-11T10:31:56+02:00"^^xsd:dateTime ;
    dct:publisher     ns28:CNECT ;
    dct:language      ns27:ENG ;
    dct:accessRights  ns26:PUBLIC ;
    dct:spatial       ns29:TUR , ns29:NOR , ns29:ISL , ns29:EUR , ns29:CHE ;
    dcat:keyword      "ebusiness" , "broadband" , "internet" , "ICT research" , "ecommerce" , "digital agenda" , "telecom market" , "ICT skills" , "information-society" ;
    dcat:theme        ns31:SOCI , ns31:TECH , ns31:GOVE ;
    dct:temporal      [ schema:startDate "2002-01-01+03:00"^^xsd:date ] ;
    dcat:distribution ns30:download ;
    dcat:distribution ns30:visualisation ;
    adms:status       ns33:Completed ;
    dcat:landingPage  <http://digital-agenda-data.eu/> ;

# Contact point
    dcat:contactPoint [
        vcard:fn "DG CONNECT - Digital Economy and Skills (Unit F.4)" ;
        vcard:hasEmail <mailto:CNECT-F4@ec.europa.eu> ;
        vcard:hasURL   <https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/>
    ] ;

    dct:accrualPeriodicity ns35:ANNUAL_2 ;

    stat:attribute          dad-prop:flag ;
    stat:attribute          dad-prop:note ;
    stat:dimension          dad-prop:breakdown ;
    stat:dimension          dad-prop:indicator ;
    stat:dimension          dad-prop:ref-area ;
    stat:dimension          dad-prop:time-period ;
    stat:dimension          dad-prop:unit-measure .

# ---- Distributions ----------------------------------------------

ns30:download a dcat:Distribution ;
    dct:format      ns38:RDF_TURTLE ;
    dct:type        ns39:DOWNLOADABLE_FILE ;
    dcat:accessURL  ns40:download ;
    dct:license     ns25:copyright .

ns30:visualisation a dcat:Distribution ;
    dct:type        ns39:VISUALIZATION ;
    dcat:accessURL  ns41:digital_agenda_scoreboard_key_indicators ;
    dct:license     ns25:copyright .

Quick Reference of Classes and Properties

This section provides a condensed tabular overview of the mentioned classes and properties in this specification. The properties are grouped under headings mandatory, recommended, optional and deprecated. These terms have the following meaning.

Mandatory property: a receiver MUST be able to process the information for that property; a sender MUST provide the information for that property.
Recommended property: a receiver MUST be able to process the information for that property; a sender SHOULD provide the information for that property if it is available.
Optional property: a receiver MUST be able to process the information for that property; a sender MAY provide the information for that property but is not obliged to do so.
Deprecated property: a receiver SHOULD be able to process information about instances of that property; a sender SHOULD NOT provide the information about instances of that property.

Class	Class IRI	Property Type	Property	Property IRI
Activity	http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Activity
Agent	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Agent	Mandatory	name	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name
Agent	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Agent	Recommended	type	http://purl.org/dc/terms/type
Annotation	http://www.w3.org/ns/oa#Annotation
Attribute property	http://purl.org/linked-data/cube#AttributeProperty
Attribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Attribution
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Mandatory	description	http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Mandatory	publisher	http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Mandatory	title	http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#dataset
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	geographical coverage	http://purl.org/dc/terms/spatial
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	homepage	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/homepage
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	language	http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	licence	http://purl.org/dc/terms/license
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	modification date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	release date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#service
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Recommended	themes	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#themeTaxonomy
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Optional	applicable legislation	http://data.europa.eu/r5r/applicableLegislation
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Optional	catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#catalog
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Optional	creator	http://purl.org/dc/terms/creator
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Optional	has part	http://purl.org/dc/terms/hasPart
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Optional	record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#record
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Optional	rights	http://purl.org/dc/terms/rights
Catalogue	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog	Optional	temporal coverage	http://purl.org/dc/terms/temporal
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Mandatory	modification date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Mandatory	primary topic	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/primaryTopic
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Recommended	application profile	http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Recommended	change type	http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#status
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Recommended	listing date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Optional	description	http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Optional	language	http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Optional	source metadata	http://purl.org/dc/terms/source
Catalogue Record	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord	Optional	title	http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Catalogued Resource	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Resource
Checksum	http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#Checksum	Mandatory	algorithm	http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#algorithm
Checksum	http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#Checksum	Mandatory	checksum value	http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#checksumValue
Checksum Algorithm	http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#ChecksumAlgorithm
Concept	http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#Concept	Mandatory	preferred label	http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#prefLabel
Concept Scheme	http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#ConceptScheme	Mandatory	title	http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Mandatory	endpoint URL	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#endpointURL
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Mandatory	title	http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Recommended	conforms to	http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Recommended	contact point	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#contactPoint
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Recommended	endpoint description	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#endpointDescription
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Recommended	keyword	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Recommended	publisher	http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Recommended	serves dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#servesDataset
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Recommended	theme	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#theme
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Optional	access rights	http://purl.org/dc/terms/accessRights
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Optional	applicable legislation	http://data.europa.eu/r5r/applicableLegislation
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Optional	description	http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Optional	documentation	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/page
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Optional	format	http://purl.org/dc/terms/format
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Optional	landing page	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#landingPage
Data Service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService	Optional	licence	http://purl.org/dc/terms/license
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Mandatory	description	http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Mandatory	title	http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Recommended	contact point	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#contactPoint
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Recommended	dataset distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#distribution
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Recommended	geographical coverage	http://purl.org/dc/terms/spatial
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Recommended	keyword	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Recommended	publisher	http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Recommended	temporal coverage	http://purl.org/dc/terms/temporal
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Recommended	theme	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#theme
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	access rights	http://purl.org/dc/terms/accessRights
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	applicable legislation	http://data.europa.eu/r5r/applicableLegislation
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	attribute	http://data.europa.eu/s1n/attribute
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	conforms to	http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	creator	http://purl.org/dc/terms/creator
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	dimension	http://data.europa.eu/s1n/dimension
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	documentation	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/page
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	frequency	http://purl.org/dc/terms/accrualPeriodicity
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	has version	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#hasVersion
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	identifier	http://purl.org/dc/terms/identifier
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	in series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#inSeries
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	is referenced by	http://purl.org/dc/terms/isReferencedBy
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	landing page	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#landingPage
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	language	http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	modification date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	number of data series	http://data.europa.eu/s1n/numSeries
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	other identifier	http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#identifier
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	provenance	http://purl.org/dc/terms/provenance
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	qualified attribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#qualifiedAttribution
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	qualified relation	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#qualifiedRelation
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	quality annotation	http://www.w3.org/ns/dqv#hasQualityAnnotation
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	related resource	http://purl.org/dc/terms/relation
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	release date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	sample	http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#sample
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	source	http://purl.org/dc/terms/source
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	spatial resolution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#spatialResolutionInMeters
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	temporal resolution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#temporalResolution
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	type	http://purl.org/dc/terms/type
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	unit of measurement	http://data.europa.eu/s1n/statUnitMeasure
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	version	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#version
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	version notes	http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#versionNotes
Dataset	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset	Optional	was generated by	http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#wasGeneratedBy
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Mandatory	description	http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Mandatory	title	http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Recommended	contact point	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#contactPoint
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Recommended	geographical coverage	http://purl.org/dc/terms/spatial
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Recommended	publisher	http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Optional	applicable legislation	http://data.europa.eu/r5r/applicableLegislation
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Optional	frequency	http://purl.org/dc/terms/accrualPeriodicity
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Optional	modification date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Optional	release date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Dataset Series	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries	Optional	temporal coverage	http://purl.org/dc/terms/temporal
Dimension property	http://purl.org/linked-data/cube#DimensionProperty
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Mandatory	access URL	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#accessURL
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Recommended	availability	http://data.europa.eu/r5r/availability
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Recommended	description	http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Recommended	format	http://purl.org/dc/terms/format
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Recommended	licence	http://purl.org/dc/terms/license
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	access service	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#accessService
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	applicable legislation	http://data.europa.eu/r5r/applicableLegislation
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	byte size	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#byteSize
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	checksum	http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#checksum
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	compression format	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#compressFormat
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	documentation	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/page
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	download URL	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#downloadURL
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	has policy	http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl/2/hasPolicy
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	language	http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	linked schemas	http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	media type	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#mediaType
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	modification date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	packaging format	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#packageFormat
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	release date	http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	rights	http://purl.org/dc/terms/rights
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	spatial resolution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#spatialResolutionInMeters
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	status	http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#status
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	temporal resolution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#temporalResolution
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	title	http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Distribution	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution	Optional	type	http://purl.org/dc/terms/rights
Document	http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Document
Frequency	http://purl.org/dc/terms/Frequency
Geometry	http://www.w3.org/ns/locn#Geometry
Identifier	http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#Identifier	Mandatory	notation	http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#notation
Kind	http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#Kind
Legal Resource	http://data.europa.eu/eli/ontology#LegalResource
Licence Document	http://purl.org/dc/terms/LicenseDocument	Recommended	type	http://purl.org/dc/terms/type
Linguistic system	http://purl.org/dc/terms/LinguisticSystem
Literal	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Literal
Location	http://purl.org/dc/terms/Location	Recommended	bbox	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#bbox
Location	http://purl.org/dc/terms/Location	Recommended	centroid	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#centroid
Location	http://purl.org/dc/terms/Location	Optional	geometry	http://www.w3.org/ns/locn#geometry
Media Type	http://purl.org/dc/terms/MediaType
Media Type or Extent	http://purl.org/dc/terms/MediaTypeOrExtent
Period of Time	http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime	Recommended	end date	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#endDate
Period of Time	http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime	Recommended	start date	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#startDate
Period of Time	http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime	Optional	beginning	http://www.w3.org/2006/time#hasBeginning
Period of Time	http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime	Optional	end	http://www.w3.org/2006/time#hasEnd
Policy	http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl/2/Policy
Provenance Statement	http://purl.org/dc/terms/ProvenanceStatement
Relationship	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Relationship	Mandatory	had role	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#hadRole
Relationship	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Relationship	Mandatory	relation	http://purl.org/dc/terms/relation
Resource	http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Resource
Rights statement	http://purl.org/dc/terms/RightsStatement
Role	http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Role
Standard	http://purl.org/dc/terms/Standard

Deprecated properties and classes

The following URIs used in StatDCAT-AP release 1.0.1 for properties have been deprecated in DCAT 3 [[vocab-dcat-3]] in favor for the URIs within the DCAT namespace.

dct:hasVersion is replaced by dcat:hasVersion.
dct:isVersionOf is replaced by dcat:isVersionOf.
owl:versionInfo is replaced by dcat:version.

The following namespace URIs appeared in the context of StatDCAT-AP, and are deprecated in favor of http://data.europa.eu/s1n/:

http://data.europa.eu/(xyz)/statdcat-ap/
http://data.europa.eu/xyz
http://data.europa.eu/m8g/

Abstract

Introduction

Context

Background

Objectives

Roadmap

Scope of the Application Profile

DCAT-AP context

Revision history

Meeting minutes

Status

License

Conformance Statement

Provider requirements

Receiver requirements

Terminology

Used prefixes

Related work

Statistical data and metadata initiatives

Eurostat and EU Publications Office collaboration

SDMX

ESMS

Open Data standards and application profiles

W3C DCAT

DCAT-AP for open data portals in Europe

GeoDCAT-AP

The Data Cube Vocabulary

Use cases

Improve discoverability of statistical datasets on open data portals

Federation of open data portals

Overview

Application profile diagram

Main Entities

Supportive Entities

Datatypes

Controlled Vocabularies

Requirements for controlled vocabularies

Expected usage of controlled vocabularies

Controlled vocabularies to be used

Properties with controlled vocabularies that MUST be used for the listed properties

Properties with AT LEAST 1 value from the controlled vocabularies

Properties with a RECOMMENDED use of controlled vocabularies

Properties with MAY use a controlled vocabularies

Other controlled vocabularies

Agent Roles

Accessibility and Multilingual Aspects

General usage guidelines

Usage guide on Datasets, Distributions and Data Services

Usage guide on Dataset Series

High Value Datasets

Legal information

Privacy and security considerations

Support for implementation

JSON-LD context file

Identifiers

Validation

Validation of StatDCAT-AP

Inverse properties

Mapping SDMX to StatDCAT-AP

Scope

Diagrams

Example

Introduction

SDMX Annotations

Explanation of the mapping diagrams

Data Catalogue

Linking to Categories using Categorisations

Dataset

Distribution

Agent

Summary

SDMX-BASED TRANSFORMATION MECHANISM

Scope of this section

Transformation mechanism

Transformation input formats

Choice of mechanisms

SDMX Structural Metadata

SDMX Metadata Set

Structure

Example MSD