VOResource
xs
vr
Implementation of an XML Schema describing a resource to
be used in the Virtual Observatory Project. Based on "Resource
Metadata for the Virtual Observatory", Version 0.8,
February 2002 by Bob Hanisch et al.
A timestamp that is compliant with ISO8601 but disallows
the use of a timezone indicator.
A date stamp that can be given to a precision of either a
day (type xs:date) or seconds (type
xs:dateTime)
Any entity or component of a VO application that is
describable and identifiable by a IVOA Identifier.
A numeric grade describing the quality of the
resource description, when applicable,
to be used to indicate the confidence an end-user
can put in the resource as part of a VO application
or research study.
See vr:ValidationLevel for an explanation of the
allowed levels.
Note that when this resource is a Service, this
grade applies to the core set of metadata.
Capability and interface metadata, as well as the
compliance of the service with the interface
standard, is rated by validationLevel tag in the
capability element (see the vr:Service complex
type).
Title
the full name given to the resource
a short name or abbreviation given to the resource.
This name will be used where brief annotations for
the resource name are required. Applications may
use to refer to this resource in a compact display.
One word or a few letters is recommended. No more
than sixteen characters are allowed.
Identifier
Unambiguous reference to the resource conforming to the IVOA
standard for identifiers
Information regarding the general curation of the resource
Information regarding the general content of the resource
The UTC date and time this resource metadata description
was created.
This timestamp must not be in the future. This time is
not required to be accurate; it should be at least
accurate to the day. Any insignificant time fields
should be set to zero.
The UTC date this resource metadata description was last updated.
This timestamp must not be in the future. This time is
not required to be accurate; it should be at least
accurate to the day. Any insignificant time fields
should be set to zero.
a tag indicating whether this resource is believed to be still
actively maintained.
resource is believed to be currently maintained, and its
description is up to date (default).
resource is apparently not being maintained at the present.
resource publisher has explicitly deleted the resource.
the allowed values for describing the resource descriptions
and interfaces.
See the RM (v1.1, section 4) for more guidance on the use of
these values.
The resource has a description that is stored in a
registry. This level does not imply a compliant
description.
In addition to meeting the level 0 definition, the
resource description conforms syntactically to this
standard and to the encoding scheme used.
In addition to meeting the level 1 definition, the
resource description refers to an existing resource that
has demonstrated to be functionally compliant.
When the resource is a service, it is consider to exist
and functionally compliant if use of the
service accessURL responds without error when used as
intended by the resource. If the service is a standard
one, it must also demonstrate the response is syntactically
compliant with the service standard in order to be
considered functionally compliant. If the resource is
not a service, then the ReferenceURL must be shown to
return a document without error.
In addition to meeting the level 2 definition, the
resource description has been inspected by a human and
judged to comply semantically to this standard as well
as meeting any additional minimum quality criteria (e.g.,
providing values for important but non-required
metadata) set by the human inspector.
In addition to meeting the level 3 definition, the
resource description meets additional quality criteria
set by the human inspector and is therefore considered
an excellent description of the resource. Consequently,
the resource is expected to be operate well as part of a
VO application or research study.
a validation stamp combining a validation level and the ID of
the validator.
The IVOA ID of the registry or organisation that
assigned the validation level.
a short name or abbreviation given to something.
This name will be used where brief annotations for
the resource name are required. Applications may
use to refer to this resource in a compact display.
One word or a few letters is recommended. No more
than sixteen characters are allowed.
Information regarding the general curation of a resource
Publisher
Entity (e.g. person or organisation) responsible for making the
resource available
Creator
The entity (e.g. person or organisation) primarily responsible
for creating the content or constitution of the resource.
A logo need only be provided for the first occurance.
When multiple logos are supplied via multiple creator
elements, the application is free to choose which to
use.
Contributor
Entity responsible for contributions to the content of
the resource
Date
Date associated with an event in the life cycle of the
resource.
This will typically be associated with the creation or
availability (i.e., most recent release or version) of
the resource. Use the role attribute to clarify.
Label associated with creation or availablilty of a version of
a resource.
Information that can be used for contacting someone with
regard to this resource.
the name of a potentially registered resource. That is, the entity
referred to may have an associated identifier.
The URI form of the IVOA identifier for the resource refered to
Information that can be used for contacting someone
the name or title of the contact person.
This can be a person's name, e.g. "John P. Jones" or
a group, "Archive Support Team".
the contact mailing address
All components of the mailing address are given in one
string, e.g. "3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218 USA".
the contact email address
the contact telephone number
Complete international dialing codes should be given, e.g.
"+1-410-338-1234".
The entity (e.g. person or organisation) primarily responsible
for creating something
the name or title of the creating person or organization
Users of the creation should use this name in
subsequent credits and acknowledgements.
URL pointing to a graphical logo, which may be used to help
identify the information source
A string indicating what the date refers to.
While this vocabulary is uncontrolled, recognized strings
include "creation", indicating the date that the resource
itself was created, and "update", indicating when the
resource was updated last. The default value,
"representative", means that the date is a rough
representation of the time coverage of the resource.
Note that this date refers to the resource; dates describing
the metadata description of the resource are handled by
the "created" and "updated" attributes of the Resource
element.
Information regarding the general content of a resource
Subject
a topic, object type, or other descriptive keywords
about the resource.
Terms for Subject should be drawn from the IAU Astronomy
Thesaurus (http://msowww.anu.edu.au/library/thesaurus/).
Description
An account of the nature of the resource
The description may include but is not limited to an abstract,
table of contents, reference to a graphical representation of
content or a free-text account of the content.
Source
a bibliographic reference from which the present resource is
derived or extracted.
This is intended to point to an article in the published
literature. An ADS Bibcode is recommended as a value when
available.
URL pointing to a human-readable document describing this
resource.
Type
Nature or genre of the content of the resource
Subject
Subject.ContentLevel
Description of the content level or intended audience
a description of a relationship to another resource.
Because this element's type is abstract, an xsi:type must be
to indicate the set of relationship types that are valid.
The reference format. Recognized values include "bibcode",
referring to a standard astronomical bibcode
(http://cdsweb.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/refcode.html).
resource that does not fall into any of the category names
currently defined.
Collection of pointed observations
Collection of bibliographic reference, abstracts, and
publications
Collection of derived data, primarily in tabular form
Collection of scholarly publications under common editorial
policy
Collection of published materials (journals, books, etc.)
Theoretical simulation or model
Collection of observations covering substantial and
contiguous areas of the sky
A service that transforms data
Collection of materials appropriate for educational use, such
as teaching resources, curricula, etc.
Collection of materials appropriate for public outreach, such
as press releases and photo galleries
Collection of materials that may be suitable for EPO
products but which are not in final product form, as in Type
Outreach or Type Education. EPOResource would apply,
e.g., to archives with easily accessed preview images or to
surveys with easy-to-use images.
Animation clips of astronomical phenomena
Artists' renderings of astronomical phenomena or objects
Background information on astronomical phenomena or objects
Compilations of basic astronomical facts about objects,
such as approximate distance or membership in constellation.
Historical information about astronomical objects
Publication-quality photographs of astronomical objects
Press releases about astronomical objects
An organization that is a publisher or curator of other
resources.
A project that is a publisher or curator of other resources
a query service for which response is a structured
description of resources.
Resource provides information appropriate for all users
Resource provides information appropriate for use in elementary
education (e.g. approximate ages 6-11)
Resource provides information appropriate for use in middle
school education (e.g. approximate ages 11-14)
Resource provides information appropriate for use in elementary
education (e.g. approximate ages 14-18)
Resource provides information appropriate for use in
community/junior college or early university education.
Resource provides information appropriate for use in
university education
Resource provides information appropriate for
supporting scientific research.
Resource provides information of interest to
amateur astronomers.
Resource provides information appropriate for education
at museums, planetariums, and other centers of informal learning.
A description of the relationship between one resource and one or
more other resources.
the named type of relationship
The VOResource Core specification defines a standard
set of names that are not enforced by this schema,
but are otherwise required by the spec.
the name of resource that this resource is related to.
A named group of one or more persons brought together to pursue
participation in VO applications.
According to the Resource Metadata Recommendation, organisations
"can be hierarchical and range in size and scope. At a high level,
an organisation could be a university, observatory, or government
agency. At a finer level, it could be a specific scientific
project, mission, or individual researcher."
The main purpose of an organisation as a registered resource is
to serve as a publisher of other resources.
Subject
the observatory or facility used to collect the data
contained or managed by this resource.
Subject
Subject.Instrument
the Instrument used to collect the data contain or
managed by a resource.
a resource that can be invoked by a client to perform some action
on its behalf.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource.
This should be repeated for all Rights values that apply.
a description of a general capability of the
service and how to use it.
This describes a general function of the
service, usually in terms of a standard
service protocol (e.g. SIA), but not
necessarily.
A service can have many capabilities
associated with it, each reflecting different
aspects of the functionality it provides.
unrestricted, public access is allowed without
authentication.
authenticated, public access is allowed.
only proprietary access is allowed with authentication.
a description of what the service does (in terms of
context-specific behavior), and how to use it (in terms of
an interface)
A numeric grade describing the quality of the
capability description and interface, when applicable,
to be used to indicate the confidence an end-user
can put in the resource as part of a VO application
or research study.
See vr:ValidationLevel for an explanation of the
allowed levels.
A human-readable description of what this capability
provides as part of the over-all service
Use of this optional element is especially encouraged when
this capability is non-standard and is one of several
capabilities listed.
a description of how to call the service to access
this capability
Since the Interface type is abstract, one must describe
the interface using a subclass of Interface, denoting
it via xsi:type.
Multiple occurances can describe different interfaces to
the logically same capability--i.e. data or functionality.
That is, the inputs accepted and the output provides should
be logically the same. For example, a WebBrowser interface
given in addition to a WebService interface would simply
provide an interactive, human-targeted interface to the
underlying WebService interface.
A URI identifier for a standard service.
This provides a unique way to refer to a service
specification standard, such as a Simple Image Access service.
The use of an IVOA identifier here implies that a
VOResource description of the standard is registered and
accessible.
A description of a service interface.
Since this type is abstract, one must use an Interface subclass
to describe an actual interface.
Additional interface subtypes (beyond WebService and WebBrowser) are
defined in the VODataService schema.
The URL (or base URL) that a client uses to access the
service. How this URL is to be interpreted and used
depends on the specific Interface subclass
When more than one URL is given, each represents an
alternative (i.e. mirror) endpoint whose behavior is
identical to all the other accessURLs listed.
Editor's note: this element assumes that
all registered services are inherently web based.
the mechanism the client must employ to gain secure
access to the service.
when more than one method is listed, each one must
be employed to gain access.
The version of a standard interface specification that this
interface complies with. When the interface is
provided in the context of a Capability element, then
the standard being refered to is the one identified by
the Capability's standardID element. If the standardID
is not provided, the meaning of this attribute is
undefined.
A tag name the identifies the role the interface plays
in the particular capability. If the value is equal to
"std" or begins with "std:", then the interface refers
to a standard interface defined by the standard
referred to by the capability's standardID attribute.
For an interface complying with some registered
standard (i.e. has a legal standardID), the role can be
match against interface roles enumerated in standard
resource record. The interface descriptions in
the standard record can provide default descriptions
so that such details need not be repeated here.
A flag indicating whether this should be interpreted as a base
URL, a full URL, or a URL to a directory that will produce a
listing of files.
The default value assumed when one is not given depends on the
context.
Assume a full URL--that is, one that can be invoked
directly without alteration. This usually returns a
single document or file.
Assume a base URL--that is, one requiring an extra portion
to be appended before being invoked.
Assume URL points to a directory that will return a listing
of files.
a description of a security mechanism.
this type only allows one to refer to the mechanism via a
URI. Derived types would allow for more metadata.
A URI identifier for a standard security mechanism.
This provides a unique way to refer to a security
specification standard. The use of an IVOA identifier here
implies that a VOResource description of the standard is
registered and accessible.
A (form-based) interface intended to be accesed interactively
by a user via a web browser.
The accessURL represents the URL of the web form itself.
A Web Service that is describable by a WSDL document.
The accessURL element gives the Web Service's endpoint URL.
The location of the WSDL that describes this
Web Service. If not provided, the location is
assumed to be the accessURL with "?wsdl" appended.
Multiple occurances should represent mirror copies of
the same WSDL file.