The database schemas are an integral part of the BEA WebLogic
E-Business Platform and are described in individual chapters specific
to the three main sections of the documentation:
E-Marketing Solutions
Building Commerce Features
Building Personalization Features
The metadata for items in the databases used in the BEA WebLogic
E-Business Platform are based on the Dublin Core Metadata Open
Standard. This standard offers a number of advantages:
-
Simplicity - The Dublin Core is intended to be usable by
non-catalogers as well as resource description specialists. Most of
the elements have commonly understood semantics that is roughly the
complexity of a library catalog card.
-
Semantic interoperability - In an Internet environment,
disparate description models interfere with the ability to search
across discipline boundaries. Promoting a commonly understood set
of descriptors that helps to unify other data content standards
increases the possibility of semantic interoperability across
disciplines.
-
International consensus - Recognition of the international
scope of resource discovery on the Web is critical to the
development of effective discovery infrastructure. The Dublin Core
benefits from active participation and promotion in some 20
countries in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
-
Extensibility - The Dublin Core provides an economical
alternative to more elaborate description models such as the full
MARC cataloging of the library world. Additionally, Dublin Core
includes sufficient flexibility and extensibility to encode the
structure and more elaborate semantics inherent in richer
description standards.
-
Metadata modularity on the Web - The diversity of metadata
needs on the Web requires an infrastructure that supports the
coexistence of complementary, independently maintained metadata
packages. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has begun
implementing an architecture for metadata for the Web.
-
The Resource Description Framework, or RDF, is designed to
support the many different metadata needs of vendors and
information providers. Representatives of the Dublin Core effort
are actively involved in the development of this architecture,
bringing the digital library perspective to bear on this important
component of the Web infrastructure.
For more information about the Dublin Core Metadata Open Standard,
please see http://purl.org/dc.
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