I don't think anyone would want to use one ontology for all work, especially not a public ontology. I can imagine people using ontology extensions that are specific to the purpose of validation, and I've found them useful myself.

I'm not arguing against using SPARQL for validation. I do think that OWL offers a more natural-feeling language for discussing constraint for most folks, and I suppose that's why we've seen the introduction of extension languages like SPIN to intermediate a little between the user and plain SPARQL.

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A. Soroka
The University of Virginia Library

On Sep 16, 2013, at 11:00 PM, CODE4LIB automatic digest system wrote:

> From: Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: September 16, 2013 10:22:47 AM EDT
> Subject: Re: CODE4LIB Digest - 12 Sep 2013 to 13 Sep 2013 (#2013-237)
> 
> 
> On 9/16/13 6:29 AM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
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>> I'd suggest that perhaps the confusion arises because "This instance is (not) 'valid' according to that ontology." might be inferred from an instance and an ontology (under certain conditions), and that's the soul of what we're asking when we define constraints on the data. Perhaps OWL can be used to express conditions of validity, as long as we represent the quality "valid" for use in inferences.
> 
> Based on the results of the RDF Validation workshop [1], validation is being expressed today as SPARQL rules. If you express the rules in OWL then unfortunately you affect downstream re-use of your ontology, and that can create a mess for inferencing and can add a burden onto any reasoners, which are supposed to apply the OWL declarations.
> 
> One participant at the workshop demonstrated a system that used the OWL "constraints" as constraints, but only in a closed system. I think that the use of SPARQL is superior because it does not affect the semantics of the classes and properties, only the instance data, and that means that the same properties can be validated differently for different applications or under different contexts. As an example, one community may wish to say that their metadata can have one and only one dc:title, while others may allow more than one. You do not want to constrain dc:title throughout the Web, only your own use of it. (Tom Baker and I presented a solution to this on the second day as Application Profiles [2], as defined by the DC community).
> 
> kc
> [1] https://www.w3.org/2012/12/rdf-val/agenda
> [2] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/wiki/images/e/ef/Baker-dc-abstract-model-revised.pdf