Dublin Core Metadata

Also described in Ticket #23.

Dublin Core is a formal specification for metadata about documents. It is used by libraries and research institutions, and can be represented easily on the web in <meta> tags or RDF. See the Dublin Core FAQ for more information.

Dublin Core could provide a useful foundation for case metadata in AltLaw. The table below suggests applications for the current Dublin Core spec, using terms under the namespace http://purl.org/dc/terms/. These terms are described in DCMI Metadata Terms.

DUBLIN CORE TERM	USE FOR
title	The "official" full title of a case
alternative	"Unofficial" titles, such as the shortened forms typically used when talking about a case
date	The date the case was decided/published/released
identifier	The minimal citation information (volume, reporter, page) necessary to identify the case
bibliographicCitation	The complete Bluebook citation, including title, court abbreviation, and year
abstract	A summary of the case, if available
creator	The court that gave the opinion and/or the judges who wrote it, as unambiguous URIs
references	URIs of other cases cited by this case
coverage	Unambiguous URI for the jurisdiction (circuit, state) covered by this case
isReferencedBy	URIs of other cases that cite this case
subject	key words that identify the topic of the case
type	URI at altlaw.org representing the class "Court Case"

Minimal Information Needed for each case: title, date, creator

Additionally, some of the the Dublin Core terms could be refined to AltLaw-specific terms, such as:

ALTLAW TERM	DUBLIN CORE TERM	USE FOR
citation	identifier	Just a citation
docket	identifier	Just a docket number
court	creator	The court deciding a case
judge	creator	The judge(s) writing a case opinion