What is a profile?

[dennisvang]

What type(s) of issue is this?

Ambiguity, Incompleteness

What is the issue?

The word "profile" occurs in two places in the spec v1.2:

section 4.2:

dct:conformsTo [...] This property points to a profile that contains the specification of the FAIR Data Point's metadata schema (in SHACL).

section 6:

Each metadata record SHOULD have a reference to its own profile which, on its turn, MUST point to the metadata schema expressed in SHACL;

(my emphasis)

However, no clear definition of the word "profile" is provided.

I can deduce from the above that it must be something that either "contains" or "points to" a metadata schema in SHACL, but that is already ambiguous.

Is it a DCAT profile (dublin core application profile), or a profile in the sense of DXWG prof:Profile?

Based on the reference implementation I assume it is the latter: ... a <http://www.w3.org/ns/dx/prof/Profile>;

[dennisvang]

some related issues:

• How to use dct:conformsTo? #5
• Usage of dct:conformsTo is not correct FAIRDataTeam/FAIRDataPoint#533
• Incorrect use of the dct:conformsTo property? (+Possible solution) FAIRDataTeam/FAIRDataPoint#230