Hi Joanne and Scott, In the Provenance incubator we agreed on the following definition: Provenance of a resource is a record that describes entities and processes involved in producing and delivering or otherwise influencing that resource. Provenance provides a critical foundation for assessing authenticity, enabling trust, and allowing reproducibility. Provenance assertions are a form of contextual metadata and can themselves become important records with their own provenance.
A couple of key points in the above definition that will hopefully help to "draw the line in the definition" - metadata, record past events (the use of temporal dimension is critical to definition of provenance and has consensus in the current provenance WG also [1]), foundation for trust and reproducibility (these are often confused to be synonymous with provenance but are actually derived from or are use of provenance), and contextual or in other words each domain/application defines its own set of provenance terms. Hope this helps. Best, Satya Sahoo http://cci.case.edu/cci/index.php/Satya_Sahoo [1] http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/wiki/Main_Page ----- Original Message ----- From: Joanne Luciano <[email protected]> Date: Thursday, September 22, 2011 12:34 pm Subject: The Provenance Spectrum.... To: public-semweb-lifesci hcls <[email protected]> ----------------------------------------------------------- | > Thank you Scott for suggestion that we move the discussion to the mailing > list... and to include the provenance working group. > > What is provenance? Where do we draw the line in the definition? > > Our HCLSIG TMO discussion today was reminiscent of the 'what is an ontology > discussion?'. And this is good discussion (that we just had on the HCLSIG > call). I would like to settle the argument of what is provenance and what > isn't by suggesting (and claiming, if no one else has already claimed, and if > so, then agreeing) that there is a Provenance Spectrum and inviting my > esteemed colleagues to fill in the provenance spectrum ... and let's create a > nice graphic to go with it that we can all use. > > Let's add UTILITY, if we can, so as we move across the spectrum, we get more > out of including more into the provenance definition. I noticed that many of > us have spent a lot of time creating metadata terms and standards to address > the problems with legacy data for the purpose of integration, for example, > but that if these metadata are included as "provenance" then many questions > become easier to answer. I learned this when I went to the IPAW conference > last June (2010) at RPI. I suggest people check the papers there. I was > impressed. > > And to Invite the Provenance working group to the discussion (or join their > discussion). > > Cheers, > Joanne > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Joanne S. Luciano, PhD Rensselaer Polytechnic > Institute > Research Associate Professor 110 8th Street, Winslow 2143 > Tetherless World Constellation Troy, NY 12180, USA > Deputy Director, WebScience Email: [email protected] > Office Tel. +1.518.276.4939 Global Tel. > +1.617.440.4364 (skypeIn) > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > |-----------------------------------------------------------
