RDF is not the be all end all for representing information, so I don't know
if there is a point to defining a validation schema which can also be
represented in RDF since requirements vary from model to model, project to
project.  If you were creating RDF/XML, you could enforce complex
validation through schematron.  XForms 2.0 will support JSON and other
non-XML data models, so you could enforce complex validation through XForms
bindings since XPath 3 will support parsing JSON, thus JSON-LD.

Our project consists of (at the moment) tens of thousands of concepts
defined at URIs and represented by XHTML+RDFa fragments.  These bits of
XHTML are edited in XForms, so the validation is pretty tight.  The
XHTML+RDFa is transformed into RDF proper upon file save and posted into
our endpoint with the SPARQL/Update mechanism.

But my broader point is: RDF (typically) is a derivative resource of a more
detailed data model.  In the case where the RDF is derivative of a
canonical resource/document, validation can be applied more consistently
during the editing process of the canonical resource.

Ethan


On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Karen Coyle <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I followed the W3C RDF Validation Workshop [1] over the last two days. The
> web page has both written papers and slides from each presentation.
>
> The short summary is that a number of users of RDF have found a need to do
> traditional style validation (required, one or more, must be numeric/from a
> list, etc.) on their RDF metadata. There is currently no RDF-based standard
> for defining validation rules, so each of these is an ad hoc solution which
> cannot be easily exchanged. [2]
>
> The actual technology of validation in all cases is SPARQL. Whether or not
> this really scales is one of the questions, but it seems pretty clear that
> SPARQL will continue to be the solution for the near future.
>
> I will try to write up a blog post that will give some more information.
>
> kc
>
>
> [1] https://www.w3.org/2012/12/**rdf-val/agenda<https://www.w3.org/2012/12/rdf-val/agenda>
> [2] nota bene: Although OWL appears to provide validation rules, the OWL
> rules only support inferencing. OWL cannot be used to constrain your data
> to valid values.
>
> --
> Karen Coyle
> [log in to unmask] http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
>