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- <title>PROV-DM Part 1: The Provenance Data Model</title>
+ <title>PROV-DM Part 1: The PROV Data Model</title>
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<section id="abstract">
- <div class="note">TO EDIT</div>
<p>
-PROV-DM is a data model for provenance that describes
+PROV-DM, the PROV data model, is a data model for provenance that describes
the entities, people and activities involved in
-producing a piece of data or thing in the world. PROV-DM is
-domain-agnostic, but is equipped with extensibility points allowing
-further domain-specific and application-specific extensions to be
-defined. PROV-DM is accompanied by PROV-N, a technology-independent
-notation, which allows serializations of PROV-DM
-instances to be created for human consumption, which facilitates the
-mapping of PROV-DM to concrete syntax, and which is used as the basis for a
-formal semantics of PROV-DM.
+producing a piece of data or thing.
+PROV-DM is structured in six components, dealing with:
+(1) entities and activities, and the time at which they were created, used, or ended;
+(2) agents bearing responsibility for entities that were generated and actities that happened;
+(3) derivations between entities;
+(4) properties that link entities that refer to a same thing;
+(5) collections of entities, whose provenance can itself be tracked;
+(6) a simple annotation mechanism.
</p>
+
+<p>This document introduces the provenance concepts underpinning
+PROV-DM in natural language, and systematically defines PROV-DM types and
+relations. PROV data model is domain-agnostic, but is equipped with
+extensibility points allowing further domain-specific and
+application-specific extensions to be defined. </p>
+
+<p>Two further documents complete the specification of PROV-DM.
+First, a companion document specifies the set of constraints that
+well-structured provenance descriptions should follow; these provide
+an interpretation for provenance descriptions. Second, to
+be able to provide examples of provenance, a notation is used for
+expressing instances of PROV-DM for human consumption; the syntactic
+details of this notation are also kept in a separate document. </p>
+
</section>
<section id="sotd">
- <div class="note">TO EDIT</div>
-<section id="prov-family">
-<!-- <h3>Prov Family of Specifications</h3>-->
+<h4>PROV Family of Specifications</h4>
This document is part of the PROV family of specifications, a set of specifications aiming to define the various aspects that are necessary to achieve the vision of inter-operable
-interchange of provenance information in heterogeneous environments such as the Web. This document defines the PROV-DM data model for provenance, accompanied with a notation to express
-instances of that data model for human consumption. Other documents are:
+interchange of provenance information in heterogeneous environments such as the Web. The specifications are as follows.
<ul>
-<li> PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS, a set of constraints applying to the PROV-DM data model,</li>
+<li> PROV-DM, the PROV data model for provenance (this document),</li>
+<li> PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS, a set of constraints applying to the PROV data model,</li>
<li> PROV-N, a notation for provenance aimed at human consumption,</li>
-<li> PROV-O, the provenance ontology: by means of a mapping of PROV-DM to the OWL2 Web Ontology Language, this specification provides a normative serialization of PROV-DM in RDF</li>
-<li> PROV-AQ, provenance access and query: the mechanisms for accessing and querying provenance; </li>
-<li> PROV-PRIMER: a primer for the PROV-DM provenance data model,</li>
-<li> PROV-SEM: a formal semantics for the PROV-DM provenance data model.</li>
+<li> PROV-O, the PROV ontology, an OWL-RL ontology allowing the mapping of PROV to RDF;</li>
+<li> PROV-AQ, the mechanisms for accessing and querying provenance; </li>
+<li> PROV-PRIMER: a primer for the PROV provenance data model,</li>
+<li> PROV-SEM: a formal semantics for the PROV data model.</li>
+<li> PROV-XML: an XML schema for PROV data model.</li>
</ul>
+<h4>How to read the PROV Family of Specifications</h4>
+<ul>
+<li>The primer is the entry point to PROV offering a pedagogical presentation of the provenance model.</li>
+<li>The Linked Data and Semantic Web community will then focus on PROV-O defining PROV classes and properties specified in an OWL-RL ontology. For further details, PROV-DM and PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS specify the constraints applicable to the data model, and its interpretation. PROV-SEM provides a mathematical semantics.</li>
+<li>The XML community will focus on PROV-XML defining an XML schema for PROV-DM. For further details can also be found in PROV-DM, PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS, and PROV-SEM.</li>
+<li>Developers seeking to retrieve or publish provenance should focus of PROV-AQ.</li>
+<li>Readers aiming to provenance-enable an application or seeking to map PROV to another serialization technology
+will focus on PROV-DM and PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS. PROV-O, PROV-N, PROV-XML offer examples of mapping to RDF, text, and XML, respectively.</li>
+</ul>
+
+
+<h4>Fourth Public Working Draft</h4>
+<p>This is the fourth public release of the PROV-DM document. Following feedback, the Working Group has decided to reorganize this document substantially, separating the data model, from its contraints, and the notation used to illustrate it. The PROV-DM release is synchronized with the release of the PROV-O, PROV-PRIMER, PROV-N, PROV-DM-CONSTRAINTS documents. We are now making clear what the entry path to the PROV family of specifications is.</p>
</section>
+
</section>