--- a/model/ProvenanceModel.html Mon Nov 28 12:37:03 2011 +0000
+++ b/model/ProvenanceModel.html Mon Nov 28 12:51:16 2011 +0000
@@ -155,7 +155,7 @@
<section id="abstract">
<p>
-PROV-DM is a core data model for provenance for building
+PROV-DM is a data model for provenance for building
representations of the entities, people and activities involved in
producing a piece of data or thing in the world. PROV-DM is
domain-agnotisc, but with well-defined extensibility points allowing
@@ -191,15 +191,15 @@
</h2>
<p>
-The term 'provenance' refers to the sources of information, such
-as people, entities, and activities, involved in producing,
+For the purpose of this specification, provenance is defined as a record that describes the people,
+institutions, entities, and activities, involved in producing,
influencing, or delivering a piece of data or a thing in the world.
In particular, the provenance of information is crucial in deciding
whether information is to be trusted, how it should be integrated with
other diverse information sources, and how to give credit to its
originators when reusing it. In an open and inclusive environment
such as the Web, users find information that is often contradictory or
-questionable: provenance can help those users to make trust judgments.
+questionable: provenance can help those users to make trust judgments.
</p>
@@ -211,23 +211,25 @@
<p>A set of specifications define the various aspects
that are necessary to achieve this vision in an inter-operable
-way:</p>
+way, the first of which is contained in this document:</p>
<ul>
-<li> This document defines the PROV-DM data model for provenance, accompanied with a notation to express instances of that data model for human consumption; </li>
+<li> The PROV-DM data model for provenance, accompanied with a notation to express instances of that data model for human consumption; </li>
<li> A normative serialization of PROV-DM in RDF [[PROV-O]], specified by means of a mapping to the OWL2 Web Ontology Language [[!OWL2-SYNTAX]];</li>
-<li> The mechanisms for accessing and querying provenance [[PROV-PAQ]].</li>
+<li> The mechanisms for accessing and querying provenance [[PROV-PAQ]];</li>
+<li> A Primer for the PROV approach [[PROV-PRIMER]].</li>
</ul>
<p>
The PROV-DM data model for provenance consists of a set of core
-concepts, and a few common extensions, based on these core concepts. PROV-DM is a core model, domain-agnotisc, but with well-defined extensibility points allowing further domain-specific and application-specific extensions to be defined.</p>
+concepts, and a few common relations, based on these core concepts. PROV-DM is a domain-agnotisc model, but with well-defined extensibility points allowing further domain-specific and application-specific extensions to be defined.</p>
<p>This specification also introduces
PROV-ASN, an abstract syntax that is primarily aimed at human consumption. PROV-ASN allows
-serializations of PROV-DM instances to be created in a technology independent manner,
+serializations of PROV-DM instances to be written in a technology independent manner,
it facilitates its mapping to concrete syntax, and it is used as the basis for a
-formal semantics.
+formal semantics. This specification uses instances of provenance written in PROV-ASN
+to illustrate the data model.
</p>
<section>
@@ -247,7 +249,7 @@
<p><a href="#extensibility-section">Section 7</a> summarizes PROV-DM extensibility points.</p>
-<p><a href="#resource-section">Section 8</a> discusses how the PROV-DM can be applied to the notion of resource.</p>
+<p><a href="#resource-section">Section 8</a> discusses how PROV-DM can be applied to the notion of resource.</p>
</section>
@@ -258,8 +260,11 @@
<p>The PROV-DM namespace is <span class="name">http://www.w3.org/ns/prov-dm/</span> (TBC).</p>
-<p> All the elements, relations, reserved names and attributes introduced in this specification belong to the PROV-DM namespace.
-</p>
+<p> All the elements, relations, reserved names and attributes introduced in this specification belong to the PROV-DM namespace.</p>
+
+<div class="note">
+There is a desire to use a single namespace that all specs can share to refer to common provenance terms.
+</div>
</section>
@@ -295,8 +300,7 @@
<p>This specification is based on a conceptualization of the world
that is described in this section. In the world (whether real or not),
there are things, which can be physical, digital, conceptual, or
-otherwise, and activities involving things. Words such 'thing' or
-'activity' should be understood with their informal meaning.</p>
+otherwise, and activities involving things. </p>
<p>When we talk about things in the world in natural language and even when we assign identifiers, we are often imprecise in ways that make it difficult to clearly and unambiguously report provenance: a resource with a URL may be understood as referring to a report available at that URL, the version of the report available there today, the report independent of where it is hosted over time, etc.</p>
@@ -311,7 +315,7 @@
<li>a report available at URL: fixes the nature of the thing, i.e. a document, and its location; </li>
<li>the version of the report available there today: fixes its version number, contents, and its date;</li>
<li>the report independent of where it is hosted and of its content over time: fixes the nature of the thing as a conceptual artifact.</li></ul>
-The provenance of these three entities will differ, and may be along the follow lines:
+The provenance of these three entities may differ, and may be along the follow lines:
<ul>
<li>the provenance of a report available at URL may include: the act of publishing it and making it available at a given location, possibly under some license and access control;</li>
<li>the provenance of the version of the report available there today may include: the authorship of the specific content, and reference to imported content;</li>