DCAT
DCAT is the W3C Data Catalog Vocabulary. It gives publishers a common RDF vocabulary for describing catalogs, datasets, data services, distributions, versions, access rights, policies, provenance, and quality information.
Buyer question
“Can WWKG make data assets discoverable and interoperable across catalogs, marketplaces, and other organizations?”
WWKG fit
| Assessment area | WWKG fit | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Catalogs and datasets | WWKG can represent catalogs and datasets as RDF graph data and can query them through SPARQL. | Native fit |
| Services and endpoints | WWKG exposes graph query and graph store endpoints that can be described as data services. | Native fit |
| Versioning | DCAT 3 includes versioning concepts. WWKG has native branch, commit, and delta history. | Native fit |
| Distributions | WWKG can describe distributions as metadata, but not every export or publishing flow is currently productized. | Partial fit |
| Federated discovery | WWKG’s peer-to-peer and catalog direction match DCAT’s decentralized catalog model. | Partial fit |
What WWKG can say
DCAT is a strong fit because WWKG is already RDF-native. Catalog metadata does not need a separate registry or side database. It can be stored, versioned, validated, queried, and governed inside WWKG itself.
That matters for buyers because catalog metadata becomes operational evidence, not marketing copy:
- A dataset description can point to the exact branch or commit it describes.
- A distribution can point to the query endpoint, export, or service that serves it.
- A data service can be backed by the same graph engine that stores the metadata.
- Access rights and policy metadata can be tied to workspace membership and encryption.
- Quality and conformance metadata can be tied to validation rules and validation reports.
Assessment boundary
WWKG has a native semantic substrate for DCAT and current DCAT-oriented groundwork. Complete DCAT publishing workflows depend on the specific catalog, distribution, service, and publication process a buyer wants to operate.
Fuller DCAT publishing surfaces are expected to develop alongside native DPROD support.