Abstract

HealthDCAT-AP is a health-related extension of the DCAT application profile for sharing information about Catalogues containing Datasets and Data Services descriptions in Europe (DCAT-AP) [DCAT-AP]. DCAT-AP is maintained by the SEMIC action, Interoperable Europe. While DCAT-AP provides a minimal common basis within Europe to share Datasets and Data Services cross-border and cross-domain, HealthDCAT-AP introduces a refined RDF vocabulary to accommodate the unique requirements of electronic health data.
The proposal for a regulation on the European Health Data Space [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197], aims to establish a unified framework to facilitate the sharing and exchange of electronic health data across Europe. It aligns with European standards for data privacy and security and specifically addresses the challenges and obstacles for the secondary use of health data—data repurposed from its original collection for research, innovation, or policymaking – in Europe by outlining specific rules and processes for data availability, usage conditions, and supporting these efforts through a common European infrastructure, healthdata@EU. Key articles within the regulation proposal detail operational mandates: Article 33 identifies the types of health data that must be made available for secondary use; Article 57 tasks the European Commission to develop an EU dataset catalogue, federating the catalogues of Member states and other authorised participants into HealthData@EU; and Article 55 commissions health data access bodies to provide metadata about available datasets, detailing their source, scope, main characteristics, data nature, and access conditions. The development of a healthDCAT application profile, as an extension of the DCAT application profile, aims to standardize health metadata within the scope of EHDS, fostering greater interoperability, findability and accessibility of electronic health data across the EU.

Introduction

Context

The European Health Data Space (EHDS) regulation [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197] is designed to address the significant fragmentation in accessing electronic health data across EU Member States. This fragmentation has hindered researchers, innovators, policymakers, and regulators from fully utilizing data to advance their objectives. The EHDS regulation seeks to eliminate these barriers, setting a framework to minimize legal uncertainties and ease the access and use of health data. By promoting a cohesive approach, the regulation aims to unlock the intrinsic value of electronic health data for secondary purposes such as research and innovation.

To facilitate the implementation of the EHDS regulation, the EHDS2 pilot project [EHDS2] has been launched. This project is pivotal in constructing a prototype of the "HealthData@EU" infrastructure, which is intended for the secondary use of health data. This infrastructure will connect various national data platforms into a unified network, enhancing the ease of conducting cross-border health research and innovation. The project not only aims to streamline the user journey for accessing and utilizing health data but also to establish robust guidelines concerning data standards, security, and transfer protocols. Such guidelines are crucial for maintaining the integrity and security of data within this cross-border framework.

In alignment with the European Commission's broader data strategy, which includes horizontal frameworks like the Data Governance Act [EUR-Lex - 32022R0868] and the Data Act [EUR-Lex - 32023R2854], the EHDS is part of a wider initiative to create sector-specific European data spaces, such as those for space, finance, energy, and health. A critical aspect of the EHDS project involves the development of national and EU dataset catalogues, providing a standardized language tailored to the specifics of electronic health data and user needs. This standardisation will be achieved through the creation of a dedicated healthDCAT application profile, an extension of the DCAT used widely across open data portals in Europe. This profile will ensure that data cataloguing and metadata practices are harmonized, enhancing interoperability and accessibility across the EU.

The use of DCAT Application Profile for data portals in Europe (DCAT-AP) as baseline specification for metadata records is explored as cornerstone for semantic interoperability in the EHDS and with other European data spaces. This document details the specifications for the HealthDCAT-AP extension, a specialised adaptation of the EU DCAT Application Profile. This extension refines the DCAT data model to better support the discovery of health data, thus improving the accessibility and understanding of electronic health records. It places a strong emphasis on privacy and security, ensuring that sensitive information is discoverable and shared in a responsible and efficient manner.

This initiative is part of the broader European Health Data Space (EHDS) and aligns with the goals of the EU4Health Programme to strengthen health systems. By fulfilling the specific objectives set forth in Regulation (EU) 2021/522 [EUR-Lex - 32021R0522], this project plays a critical role in developing a robust, accessible, and effective health data infrastructure across Europe. The enhanced infrastructure is expected to drive the digital transformation of healthcare within the EU, fostering a more data-driven, efficient, and patient-centered approach. Ultimately, this will significantly improve public health outcomes and healthcare delivery across member states.

This document is a deliverable of the Work Package 6 of the EHDS2 pilot project [EHDS2] consortium.

Scope of this version

The development of the HealthDCAT extension is an ongoing iterative process that will extend beyond the pilot project, incorporating continuous feedback and contributions from the stakeholder community. This document specifies a first iteration of the HealthDCAT-AP extension, a customised adaptation of the EU DCAT Application Profile. It adapts the DCAT data model specifically for health-related catalogued resources, in alignment with the Regulation proposal on the European Health Data Space [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197]. This customisation facilitates the management and dissemination of health data within the regulatory framework, enhancing its accessibility and utility for health data users.

Comments and queries should be sent via the issue tracker of the dedicated GitHub repository.

A DCAT-AP extension: Enhancing DCAT-AP for the secondary use of health data

The HealthDCAT-AP designed as an extension of the DCAT-AP incorporates its principal classes such as dcat:Catalog, dcat:CatalogRecord, dcat:Dataset, dcat:Distribution, and dcat:DataService. This extension leverages RDF's flexible architecture to enhance metadata capabilities without compromising the stability of existing or under-development catalog systems. By integrating new metadata elements as triples, the extension enriches the metadata model without altering established structures. To ensure interoperability, the extension adheres to several principles:

To effectively extend DCAT-AP, several best practices are recommended: This structured approach to developing HealthDCAT-AP ensures that the metadata model is enhanced while maintaining interoperability and compliance with established standards, thereby supporting a more interconnected and accessible digital health ecosystem.

Status of This Document

This application profile was published by the Work Package 6 of the EHDS2 pilot project as a Recommendation on December 22th, 2023. It has no official standing of any kind and does not represent the support or consensus of any standards organisation.

The structure and content of this document are partially derived from the [DCAT-AP-v3.0] and [DCAT-AP High Value Dataset] specifications. This approach ensures a consistent document format across all DCAT-AP specifications.

Information about the process and the decisions involved in the creation of this specification are consultable at the Changelog.

License

Copyright © 2024 European Union. All material in this repository is published under the license CC-BY 4.0, unless explicitly otherwise mentioned.

Conformance Statement

For applications to comply with HealthDCAT-AP, they MUST first conform to DCAT-AP. Additionally, these applications MUST adhere to the specified constraints and usage guidelines, following conformance statements similar to those outlined in DCAT-AP.

Provider requirements

In order to conform to this Application Profile, an application that provides metadata MUST: The application of the controlled vocabularies as described in section [[[#controlled-vocs]]].

Receiver requirements

In order to conform to this Application Profile, an application that receives metadata MUST be able to: "Processing" refers to the requirement that receivers accept incoming data and seamlessly deliver it to applications and services. This term does not dictate or specify the final actions that applications and services perform with the data, such as parsing, converting, storing, making searchable, or displaying to users.

Terminology used in this application profile

An Application Profile is a specification that reuses terms from one or more base standards, and adds more specificity by identifying mandatory, recommended and optional elements for a particular application, as well as advising on the use of controlled vocabularies.

A Dataset is a collection of data featuring a data catalogue that describes datasets and offers services to facilitate their discovery and reuse.
In the context of the EHDS Regulation proposal [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197 (Art.44)], accessing these datasets must comply with the principles of data minimization and purpose limitation. This ensures that only data relevant and necessary for the intended processing purpose are provided, in either anonymised or pseudonymised form, depending on what is feasible for meeting the processing objectives.

A Data holder means, in the context of the EHDS Regulation proposal [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197 (Art.2 (y))], any natural or legal person, which is an entity or a body in the health or care sector, or performing research in relation to these sectors, as well as Union institutions, bodies, offices and agencies who has the right or obligation, in accordance with this Regulation, applicable Union law or national legislation implementing Union law, or in the case of non-personal data, through control of the technical design of a product and related services, the ability to make available, including to register, provide, restrict access or exchange certain data.

Article 32a: Applicability to health data holders
1. The following categories of health data holders shall be exempted from the obligations incumbent on health data holders laid down in this Chapter:
    (a) individual researchers and natural persons;
    (b) legal persons that qualify as micro-enterprises as defined in Article 2 of the Annex to Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC.
Member States may, by virtue of national legislation, provide that the obligations of health data holders laid down in this Chapter shall apply to the health data holders referred to in paragraph 1 which fall under their jurisdiction. Member States may, by virtue of national legislation, provide that the duties of certain categories of data holders shall be fulfilled by health data intermediation entities. In that case, the data shall still be considered as being made available from several data holders. National legislation defined under paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 of this Article shall be notified to the Commission by [date of applicability of Chapter IV]. Any subsequent law or amendment affecting them shall be notified to the Commission without delay.

A Data Portal is a Web-based system that contains a data catalogue with descriptions of datasets and provides services enabling discovery and reuse of the datasets.
In the context of the EHDS Regulation proposal [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197 (Art.57)], Data Portals are managed by the European Commission, Health Data Access Bodies and other authorised participants.

The Common European data spaces [Shaping Europe’s digital future (europa.eu)] are a key component of the European strategy for data. Their aim is to make more data available for access and reuse. This will be done in a trustworthy and secure environment for the benefit of European businesses and citizens. DCAT-AP supports the implementation of the 14 sector data spaces by providing a standardised framework for cataloging datasets, thereby enhancing data interoperability and accessibility across different data spaces in Europe.

A Catalogue is a curated collection of metadata about datasets.

A Catalogue Record is a set of statements about the description of a dataset in the catalogue, e.g. providing information about when a dataset was entered in the catalogue or when its description was modified.

A Distribution is a specific available form of a dataset. If a dataset is published in multiple formats (e.g. Excel, CSV, Data Cube) these are described as separate distributions.
In the context of the EHDS Regulation proposal [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197 (Art.54)], all secondary use access to requested electronic health data SHOULD be done through a secure processing environment.

Health Data Access Body: According to the EHDS Regulation proposal [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197], a Health Data Access Body for secondary use of electronic health data is an organisation designated by EU Member States that ensures that electronic health data are made available by data holders for data users.

A Uniform Resource Identifier - URI is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Request for Comments (RFC)21 specifying a compact sequence of characters that identifies an abstract or physical resource. URLs on the Web are a subset of URIs and are often called HTTP URIs.

Personal electronic health data means data concerning health and genetic data as defined in Article 4, points (13) and (15), of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, processed in an electronic form. [EUR-Lex - 32016R0679 (Art.4(13)(15))]

Non-personal electronic health data means electronic health data other than personal electronic health data, encompassing both data that has been anonymised so that it no longer relates to an identified or identifiable natural person and data that has never related to a data subject.

Namespaces

The namespace for healthDCAT-AP is: (to create)

The suggested namespace prefix is: healthdcatap

This specification uses the following prefixes to shorten the URIs for readibility.
PrefixNamespace IRI
admshttp://www.w3.org/ns/adms#
dcathttp://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#
dcataphttp://data.europa.eu/r5r/
dcthttp://purl.org/dc/terms/
dpvhttps://w3id.org/dpv#
dpv-pdhttps://w3id.org/dpv/dpv-pd#
dqvhttps://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dqv/
foafhttp://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
rdfhttp://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
rdfshttp://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#
skoshttp://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#
vcardhttp://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#
xsdhttp://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#

Abbreviations

AP: Application Profile
CSV: Comma-separated values
CSVW: CSV on the Web
DCAT: Data Catalog Vocabulory
UML: Unified Modeling Language
URI: Uniform Resource Identifier

healthDCAT-AP Overview

HealthDCAT-AP is an application profile to DCAT-AP. The healthDCAT-AP specific requirements are compatible with the release of DCAT-AP 2 and release of DCAT-AP 3.0.0. This application profile is meant to provide a DCAT-AP-conformant representation of metadata specific to health datasets in scope of the EHDS Regulation proposal [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197] as listed in Article 33.

HealthDCAT-AP extends DCAT-AP by including:

Application profile diagram

An overview of healthDCAT-AP is shown by the UML diagram below. The UML diagrams illustrate the specification described in this document. For readability purposes, the representation has been condensed as follows:

This document describes the usage of the following main entities for a correct usage of the Application Profile:
| Agent | Catalogue | Catalogue Record | Catalogued Resource | Dataset | Distribution | Location | Relationship | Rights statement |

The main entities are supported by:
| Activity | Attribution | Checksum | Checksum Algorithm | Concept | Concept Scheme | Dataset Series (DCAT-AP 3) | Data Service | Document | Frequency | Geometry | Identifier | Kind | Legal Resource | Licence Document | Linguistic system | Literal | Media type | Period of time | Policy | Provenance Statement | Resource | Role | Standard |

And supported by these datatypes:
| Media Type | Media Type or Extent | Temporal Literal | Time instant | xsd:dateTime | xsd:decimal | xsd:duration | xsd:hexBinary | xsd:nonNegativeInteger |

Figure 1 HealthDCAT-AP UML Class Diagram (extending DCAT-AP 3.0) for Sensitive health Data


Figure 2 HealthDCAT-AP UML Class Diagram (extending DCAT-AP 3.0) for Protected health Data


Figure 3 HealthDCAT-AP UML Class Diagram (extending DCAT-AP 3.0) for Open health Data

Main Entities

The main entities are those that form the core of the Application Profile. The properties and their associated constraints that apply in the context of this profile are listed in a tabular form. Each row corresponds to one property. In addition to the constraints also cross-references are provided to DCAT and DCAT-AP. For the last, to save space, the following abbreviations are used: This reuse qualification assessment refers to a specific version of DCAT-AP. Therefore it may vary over time when new versions of DCAT-AP are created.

Agent

Definition
Any entity carrying out actions with respect to the (Core) entities Catalogue, Datasets, Data Services and Distributions.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Usage Note
If the Agent is an organisation, the use of the Organisation Ontology is recommended.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: name , type .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
name Literal 1..* A name of the agent. This property can be repeated for different versions of the name (e.g. the name in different languages). A
URL Resource 1..1 A webpage that either allows to make contact (i.e. a webform) or the information contains how to get into contact. P
email Resource 1..1 A email address via which contact can be made. This property SHOULD be used to provide the email address of the Agent, specified using fully qualified mailto: URI scheme [RFC6068]. The email SHOULD be used to establish a communication channel to the agent. P
type Concept 0..1 A type of the agent that makes the Catalogue or Dataset available. A

Catalogue

Definition
A catalogue or repository that hosts the Datasets or Data Services being described.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: applicable legislation , catalogue , creator , dataset , description , geographical coverage , has part , homepage , language , licence , modification date , publisher , record , release date , rights , service , temporal coverage , themes , title .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
applicable legislation Legal Resource 1..* The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Catalog. E
catalogue Catalogue 0..* A catalogue whose contents are of interest in the context of this catalogue. Link A
creator Agent 0..1 An entity responsible for the creation of the catalogue. Link A
dataset Dataset 0..* A Dataset that is part of the Catalogue. As empty Catalogues are usually indications of problems, this property should be combined with the property service to implement an empty Catalogue check. Link A
description Literal 1..* A free-text account of the Catalogue. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description. Link A
geographical coverage Location 0..* A geographical area covered by the Catalogue. Link A
has part Catalogue 0..* A related Catalogue that is part of the described Catalogue. Link A
homepage Document 0..1 A web page that acts as the main page for the Catalogue. Link A
language Linguistic system 0..* A language used in the textual metadata describing titles, descriptions, etc. of the Datasets in the Catalogue. This property can be repeated if the metadata is provided in multiple languages. Link A
licence Licence Document 0..1 A licence under which the Catalogue can be used or reused. Link A
modification date Temporal Literal 0..1 The most recent date on which the Catalogue was modified. Link A
publisher Agent 1 An entity (organisation) responsible for making the Catalogue available. Link A
record Catalogue Record 0..* A Catalogue Record that is part of the Catalogue. Link A
release date Temporal Literal 0..1 The date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the Catalogue. Link A
rights Rights statement 0..1 A statement that specifies rights associated with the Catalogue. Link A
service Data Service 0..* A site or end-point (Data Service) that is listed in the Catalogue. As empty Catalogues are usually indications of problems, this property should be combined with the property dataset to implement an empty Catalogue check. Link A
temporal coverage Period of time 0..* A temporal period that the Catalogue covers. Link A
themes Concept Scheme 0..* A knowledge organisation system used to classify the Catalogue's Datasets. This property refers to a knowledge organisation system used to classify the Catalogue's Datasets. It must have at least the value NAL:data-theme as this is the mandatory controlled vocabulary for dcat:theme. Link A
title Literal 1..* A name given to the Catalogue. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name. Link A

Catalogue Record

Definition
A description of a Dataset's entry in the Catalogue.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: application profile , change type , description , language , listing date , modification date , primary topic , source metadata , title .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
application profile Standard 0..1 An Application Profile that the Dataset's metadata conforms to. Link A
change type Concept 0..1 The status of the catalogue record in the context of editorial flow of the dataset and data service descriptions. A
description Literal 0..* A free-text account of the record. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description. Link A
language Linguistic system 0..* A language used in the textual metadata describing titles, descriptions, etc. of the Dataset. This property can be repeated if the metadata is provided in multiple languages. A
listing date Temporal Literal 0..1 The date on which the description of the Dataset was included in the Catalogue. Link A
modification date Temporal Literal 1 The most recent date on which the Catalogue entry was changed or modified. Link A
primary topic Catalogued Resource 1 A link to the Dataset, Data service or Catalog described in the record. A catalogue record will refer to one entity in a catalogue. This can be either a Dataset or a Data Service. To ensure an unambigous reading of the cardinality the range is set to Catalogued Resource. However it is not the intend with this range to require the explicit use of the class Catalogued Record. As abstract class, an subclass should be used. Link A
source metadata Catalogue Record 0..1 The original metadata that was used in creating metadata for the Dataset. A
title Literal 0..* A name given to the Catalogue Record. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name. Link A

Catalogued Resource

Definition
Resource published or curated by a single agent.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Usage Note
For DCAT-AP, the class is considered an abstract notion.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Concept

Definition
A subject of a Catalogue, Dataset, or Data Service.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: preferred label, category scheme.
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
preferred label Literal 1..* A preferred label of the concept. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the label. A
category scheme Concept Scheme 0..* This property MAY be used to specify the Category Scheme to which the Category belongs. A

Dataset

Definition
A conceptual entity that represents the information published.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Subclass of
Catalogued Resource
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: access rights , alternative , analytics , applicable legislation , code values , coding system , conforms to , contact point , creator , dataset distribution , description , documentation , frequency , geographical coverage , has version , health category , health data access body , health theme , identifier , in series , is referenced by , keyword , landing page , language , legal basis , max typical age , min typical age , modification date , number of records , number of unique individuals , other identifier , personal data , population coverage , provenance , publisher , publisher note , publisher type , purpose , qualified attribution , qualified relation , quality annotation , related resource , release date , retention period , sample , source , spatial resolution , temporal coverage , temporal resolution , theme , title , type , version , version notes , was generated by .

The following properties of this profile (denoted as 'E') are reused with additional usage notes or additional restrictions compared to DCAT-AP: access rights , applicable legislation , distribution , geographical coverage , identifier , provenance , publisher , sample , theme , type .

The properties listed below are unique to the HealthDCAT-AP profile (denoted as 'P') and were not earlier defined by any requirements in DCAT-AP: alternative , analytics , code values , coding system , health category , health data access body , health theme , legal basis , max typical age , min typical age , number of records , number of unique individuals , personal data , population coverage , publisher note , publisher type , purpose , quality annotation , retention period .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
alternative Literal 0..* Alternative title of the dataset such as an acronym.
RDF example: dct:alternative
P
access rights Rights statement 1..1 Information that indicates whether the Dataset is publicly accessible, has access restrictions or is not public.
RDF example: dct:accessRights
Link E
applicable legislation Legal Resource 1..* The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Dataset.
RDF example: dcatap:applicableLegislation
For health datasets, the value must include the ELI of the EHDS Regulation.
As multiple legislations may apply to the resource the maximum cardinality is not limited.
E
analytics Distribution 0..* An analytics distribution of the dataset.
RDF example: healthdcatap:analytics
Publishers are encouraged to provide URLs pointing to API endpoints or document repositories where users can access or request associated resources such as technical reports of the dataset, quality measurements, usability indicators,... or analytics services. P
code values Concept 0..* Health classifications and their codes associated with the dataset.
RDF example: healthdcatap:hasCodeValues
A dataset may be associated with multiple health classifications. P
coding system Standard 0..* Coding systems in use (ex: ICD-10-CM, DGRs, SNOMED=CT, ...)
RDF example: healthdcatap:hasCodingSystem
Wikidata concept URIs MUST be used. P
conforms to Standard 0..* An implementing rule or other specification.
RDF example: dct:conformsTo
Wikidata concept URIs MUST be used. Link E
contact point Kind 1..* Contact information that can be used for sending comments about the Dataset.
RDF example: dcat:contactPoint
Link A
creator Agent 0..* An entity responsible for producing the dataset.
RDF example: dct:creator
Link A
dataset distribution Distribution 1..* An available Distribution for the Dataset.
RDF example: dcat:distribution
For non-open health datasets, a distribution must include information on the Health Data Access Body supporting data access. Link E
description Literal 1..* A free-text account of the Dataset.
RDF example: dct:description
This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description. Link A
documentation Document 0..* A page or document about this Dataset.
RDF example: foaf:page
A
frequency Frequency 0..1 The frequency at which the Dataset is updated.
RDF example: dct:accrualPeriodicity
Link A
geographical coverage Location 1..* A geographic region that is covered by the Dataset.
RDF example: dct:spatial
Link E
has version Dataset 0..* A related Dataset that is a version, edition, or adaptation of the described Dataset.
RDF example: dcat:hasVersion
Notabene: dct:hasVersion is replaced by dcat:hasVersion in DCAT-AP 3 A
health category Concept 0..* The health category to which this dataset belongs as described in the Commission Regulation on the European Health Data Space laying down a list of categories of electronic data for secondary use, Art.33.
RDF example: healthdcatap:healthCategory
A mandatory controlled vocabulary denoting health data within the scope of the Commission Regulation is provided. P
health data access body Agent 1..1 Health Data Access Body supporting access to data in the Member State.
RDF example: healthdcatap:hdab
P
health theme Concept 1..* A category of the Dataset or tag describing the Dataset.
RDF example: healthdcatap:healthTheme
A Dataset may be associated with multiple themes. Wikidata concept URIs MUST be used. P
identifier Literal 1..* The main identifier for the Dataset, e.g. the URI or other unique identifier in the context of the Catalogue.
RDF example: dct:identifier
The use of persistent dereferenceable URIs is mandatory in this profile. Link E
in series Dataset Series A dataset series of which the dataset is part. Link A
is referenced by Resource 0..* A related resource, such as a publication, that references, cites, or otherwise points to the dataset.
RDF example: dct:isReferencedBy
Link A
keyword Literal 1..* A keyword or tag describing the Dataset.
RDF example: dcat:keyword
Link A
landing page Document 0..* A web page that provides access to the Dataset, its Distributions and/or additional information.
RDF example: dcat:landingPage
It is intended to point to a landing page at the original data provider, not to a page on a site of a third party, such as an aggregator. Link A
language Linguistic system 0..* A language of the Dataset.
RDF example: dct:language
This property can be repeated if there are multiple languages in the Dataset. Link A
legal basis Legal Basis 0..* The legal basis used to justify processing of personal data
RDF example: dpv:hasLegalBasis
P
minimum typical age xsd:non NegativeInteger 1..1 Minimum typical age of the population within the dataset
RDF example: healthdcatap:minTypicalAge
P
maximum typical age xsd:non NegativeInteger 0..1 Maximum typical age of the population within the dataset
RDF example: healthdcatap:maxTypicalAge
P
number of records xsd:non NegativeInteger 0..1 Size of the dataset in terms of the number of records.
RDF example: healthdcatap:numberOfRecords
P
Number of records for unique individuals. xsd:non NegativeInteger 0..1 Number of records for unique individuals.
RDF example: healthdcatap:numberOfUniqueIndividuals
P
modification date Temporal Literal 0..1 The most recent date on which the Dataset was changed or modified.
RDF example: dct:modified
Link A
other identifier Identifier 0..* A secondary identifier of the Dataset, such as MAST/ADS17, DataCite18, DOI19, EZID20 or W3ID21.
RDF example: adms:identifier
Link A
personal data Personal Data 0..* Key elements that represent an individual in the dataset.
RDF example: dpv:hasPersonalData
P
population coverage Literal 0..* A definition of the population within the dataset
RDF example: healthdcatap:populationcoverage
P
provenance Provenance Statement 1..* A statement about the lineage of a Dataset.
RDF example: dct:provenance
Information about how the data was collected, including methodologies, tools, and protocols used. E
publisher Agent 1..1 An entity (organisation) responsible for making the Dataset available.
RDF example: dct:publisher
Link E
publisher note Literal 1..* A description of the publisher activities
RDF example: healthdcatap:publishernote
This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the publisher notes. P
publisher type Concept 1..* A type of organisation that makes the Dataset available.
RDF example: healthdcatap:publishertype
A controlled vocabulary is provided, denoting commonly recognised health publishers. P
purpose Purpose 1..* A free text statement of the purpose of the processing of data or personal data.
RDF example: dpv:hasPurpose
P
qualified attribution Attribution 0..* An Agent having some form of responsibility for the resource.
RDF example: prov:qualifiedAttribution
Link A
qualified relation Relationship 0..* A description of a relationship with another resource.
RDF example: dcat:qualifiedRelation
Link A
quality annotation quality certificate 0..* A statement related to quality of the Dataset, including rating, quality certificate, feedback that can be associated to the dataset.
RDF example: dqv:hasQualityAnnotation
P
related resource Resource 0..* A related resource.
RDF example: dct:relation
Link A
release date Temporal Literal 0..1 The date of formal issuance (e.g.: publication) of the Dataset.
RDF example: dct:issued
Link A
retention period Period of time 0..* A temporal period which the dataset is available for secondary use.
RDF example: healthdcatap:retentionPeriod
P
sample Distribution 0..* A sample distribution of the dataset.
RDF example: adms:sample
E
source Dataset 0..* A related Dataset from which the described Dataset is derived.
RDF example: dct:source
A
spatial resolution xsd:decimal 0..* The minimum spatial separation resolvable in a dataset, measured in meters.
RDF example: dcat:spatialResolutionInMeters
Link A
temporal coverage Period of time 0..* A temporal period that the Dataset covers.
RDF example: dct:temporal
Link A
temporal resolution xsd:duration 0..* The minimum time period resolvable in the dataset.
RDF example: dcat:temporalResolution
Link A
theme Concept 1..* A category of the Dataset.
RDF example: dcat:theme
A Dataset may be associated with multiple themes. The authority table for Data Themes, maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union is the mandatory controlled vocabulary for dcat:theme. It must have at least the value NAL:data-theme "HEAL" to annotate health datasets. Link E
title Literal 1..* A name given to the Dataset.
RDF example: dct:title
This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name. Link A
type Concept 1..1 A type of the Dataset.
RDF example: dct:type
A recommended controlled vocabulary data-type is foreseen. For health datasets containing personal level information, the type of the dataset MUST take the value "personal data". Link E
version Literal 0..* The version indicator (name or identifier) of a resource.
RDF example: dcat:version
Link owl:versionInfo is replaced by dcat:version in DCAT-AP 3. A
version notes Literal 0..* A description of the differences between this version and a previous version of the Dataset.
RDF example: adms:versionnotes
This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the version notes. A
was generated by Activity 0..* An activity that generated, or provides the business context for, the creation of the dataset.
RDF example: prov:wasGeneratedBy
Link A

Distribution

Definition
A physical embodiment of the Dataset in a particular format.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: access service , access URL , applicable legislation , availability , byte size , checksum , compression format , description , documentation , download URL , format , has policy , language , licence , linked schemas , media type , modification date , packaging format , release date , rights , spatial resolution , status , temporal resolution , title .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
access service Data Service 0..* A data service that gives access to the distribution of the dataset. Link A
access URL Resource 1..* A URL that gives access to a Distribution of the Dataset. The resource at the access URL may contain information about how to get the Dataset. Link A
applicable legislation Legal Resource 1..* The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Distribution. E
availability Concept 0..1 An indication how long it is planned to keep the Distribution of the Dataset available. A
byte size xsd:nonNegativeInteger 0..1 The size of a Distribution in bytes. Link A
checksum Checksum 0..1 A mechanism that can be used to verify that the contents of a distribution have not changed. The checksum is related to the downloadURL. Link A
compression format Media type 0..1 The format of the file in which the data is contained in a compressed form, e.g. to reduce the size of the downloadable file. It SHOULD be expressed using a media type as defined in the official register of media types managed by IANA. Link A
description Literal 0..* A free-text account of the Distribution. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description. Link A
documentation Document 0..* A page or document about this Distribution. A
download URL Resource 0..* A URL that is a direct link to a downloadable file in a given format. Link A
format Media Type or Extent 0..1 The file format of the Distribution. Link A
has policy Policy 0..1 The policy expressing the rights associated with the distribution if using the ODRL vocabulary. Link A
language Linguistic system 0..* A language used in the Distribution. This property can be repeated if the metadata is provided in multiple languages. A
licence Licence Document 0..1 A licence under which the Distribution is made available. Link A
linked schemas Standard 0..* An established schema to which the described Distribution conforms. Link A
media type Media Type 0..1 The media type of the Distribution as defined in the official register of media types managed by IANA. Link A
modification date Temporal Literal 0..1 The most recent date on which the Distribution was changed or modified. Link A
packaging format Media Type 0..1 The format of the file in which one or more data files are grouped together, e.g. to enable a set of related files to be downloaded together. It SHOULD be expressed using a media type as defined in the official register of media types managed by IANA. Link A
release date Temporal Literal 0..1 The date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the Distribution. Link A
rights Rights statement 0..1 A statement that specifies rights associated with the Distribution. Link A
spatial resolution xsd:decimal 0..* The minimum spatial separation resolvable in a dataset distribution, measured in meters. Link A
status Concept 0..1 The status of the distribution in the context of maturity lifecycle. It MUST take one of the values Completed, Deprecated, Under Development, Withdrawn. A
temporal resolution xsd:duration 0..* The minimum time period resolvable in the dataset distribution. Link A
title Literal 0..* A name given to the Distribution. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description. Link A

Location

Definition
A spatial region or named place.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Usage Note
It can be represented using a controlled vocabulary or with geographic coordinates. In the latter case, the use of the Core Location Vocabulary is recommended, following the approach described in the GeoDCAT-AP specification.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: bbox , centroid , geometry .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
bbox Literal 0..1 The geographic bounding box of a resource. Link A
centroid Literal 0..1 The geographic center (centroid) of a resource. Link A
geometry Geometry 0..1 The corresponding geometry for a resource. Link A

Relationship

Definition
An association class for attaching additional information to a relationship between DCAT Resources.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: had role , relation .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
had role Role 1..* A function of an entity or agent with respect to another entity or resource. Link A
relation Resource 1..* A resource related to the source resource. Link A

Rights statement

Definition
A statement about the intellectual property rights (IPR) held in or over a resource, a legal document giving official permission to do something with a resource, or a statement about access rights.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: conditions for access and usage.
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
conditions for access and usage Concept 1..1 This property MUST be used to indicate the conditions if any contracts, licences and/or are applied for the use of the dataset. The conditions are declared on an aggregated level: whether a free and unrestricted use is possible, a contract has to be concluded and/or a licence has to be agreed on to use a dataset. A controlled vocabulary to be used is provided. A

Supportive Entities

The supportive entities are supporting the main entities in the Application Profile. They are included in the Application Profile because they form the range of properties.

Activity

Definition
An activity is something that occurs over a period of time and acts upon or with entities; it may include consuming, processing, transforming, modifying, relocating, using, or generating entities.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Attribution

Definition
Attribution is the ascribing of an entity to an agent.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Checksum

Definition
A value that allows the contents of a file to be authenticated.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Usage Note
This class allows the results of a variety of checksum and cryptographic message digest algorithms to be represented.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: algorithm , checksum value .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
algorithm Checksum Algorithm 1 The algorithm used to produce the subject Checksum. Link A
checksum value xsd:hexBinary 1 A lower case hexadecimal encoded digest value produced using a specific algorithm. Link A

Checksum Algorithm

Definition
Algorithm for Checksums.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Concept Scheme

Definition
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: title .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
title Literal 1..* A name of the concept scheme. May be repeated for different versions of the name A

Data Service

Definition
A collection of operations that provides access to one or more datasets or data processing functions.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Subclass of
Catalogued Resource
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: access rights , applicable legislation , application profile , contact point , description , endpoint description , endpoint URL , format , keyword , landing page , licence , publisher , serves dataset , theme , title .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
access rights Rights statement 0..1 Information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies. Link A
applicable legislation Legal Resource 0..* The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Data Service. A
application profile Standard 0..* An established (technical) standard to which the Data Service conforms. The standards referred here SHOULD describe the Data Service and not the data it serves. The latter is provided by the dataset with which this Data Service is connected. For instance the data service adheres to the OGC WFS API standard, while the associated dataset adheres to the INSPIRE Address data model. Link A
contact point Kind 0..* Contact information that can be used for sending comments about the Data Service. Link A
description Literal 0..* A free-text account of the Data Service. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the description. Link A
endpoint description Resource 0..* A description of the services available via the end-points, including their operations, parameters etc. The property gives specific details of the actual endpoint instances, while dct:conformsTo is used to indicate the general standard or specification that the endpoints implement. Link A
endpoint URL Resource 1..* The root location or primary endpoint of the service (an IRI). Link A
format Media Type or Extent 0..* The structure that can be returned by querying the endpointURL. A
keyword Literal 0..* A keyword or tag describing the Data Service. Link A
landing page Document 0..* A web page that provides access to the Data Service and/or additional information. It is intended to point to a landing page at the original data service provider, not to a page on a site of a third party, such as an aggregator. Link A
licence Licence Document 0..1 A licence under which the Data service is made available. Link A
publisher Agent 0..1 An entity (organisation) responsible for making the Data Service available. Link A
serves dataset Dataset 0..* This property refers to a collection of data that this data service can distribute. Link A
theme Concept 0..* A category of the Data Service. A Data Service may be associated with multiple themes. Link A
title Literal 1..* A name given to the Data Service. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name. Link A

Dataset Series

Definition
A collection of datasets that are published separately, but share some characteristics that group them.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Subclass of
Catalogued Resource
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: applicable legislation , contact point , description , frequency , geographical coverage , modification date , publisher , release date , temporal coverage , title .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
applicable legislation Legal Resource 1..* The legislation that mandates the creation or management of the Dataset Series. E
contact point Kind 0..* Contact information that can be used for sending comments about the Dataset Series. Link A
description Literal 1..* A free-text account of the Dataset Series. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions. It is recommended to provide an indication about the dimensions the Dataset Series evolves. Link A
frequency Frequency 0..1 The frequency at which the Dataset Series is updated. The frequency of a dataset series is not equal to the frequency of the dataset in the collection. Link A
geographical coverage Location 0..* A geographic region that is covered by the Dataset Series. When spatial coverage is a dimension in the dataset series then the spatial coverage of each dataset in the collection should be part of the spatial coverage. In that case, an open ended value is recommended, e.g. EU or a broad bounding box covering the expected values. Link A
modification date Temporal Literal 0..1 The most recent date on which the Dataset Series was changed or modified. This is not equal to the most recent modified dataset in the collection of the dataset series. Link A
publisher Agent 0..1 An entity (organisation) responsible for ensuring the coherency of the Dataset Series The publisher of the dataset series may not be the publisher of all datasets. E.g. a digital archive could take over the publishing of older datasets in the series. Link A
release date Temporal Literal 0..1 The date of formal issuance (e.g., publication) of the Dataset Series. The moment when the dataset series was established as a managed resource. This is not equal to the release date of the oldest dataset in the collection of the dataset series. Link A
temporal coverage Period of time 0..* A temporal period that the Dataset Series covers. When temporal coverage is a dimension in the dataset series then the temporal coverage of each dataset in the collection should be part of the temporal coverage. In that case, an open ended value is recommended, e.g. after 2012. Link A
title Literal 1..* A name given to the Dataset Series. This property can be repeated for parallel language versions of the name. Link A

Document

Definition
A textual resource intended for human consumption that contains information, e.g. a web page about a Dataset.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Frequency

Definition
A rate at which something recurs, e.g. the publication of a Dataset.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Geometry

Definition
The locn:Geometry class provides the means to identify a location as a point, line, polygon, etc. expressed using coordinates in some coordinate reference system.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Identifier

Definition
An identifier in a particular context, consisting of the string that is the identifier; an optional identifier for the identifier scheme; an optional identifier for the version of the identifier scheme; an optional identifier for the agency that manages the identifier scheme.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: notation .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
notation Literal 0..1 A string that is an identifier in the context of the identifier scheme referenced by its datatype. A

Kind

Definition
A description following the vCard specification.
Usage Note
It is recommended to provide at least either an email or a contact form from e.g. a service desk.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: contact page , email .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
contact page Resource 0..1 A webpage that either allows to make contact (i.e. a webform) or the information contains how to get into contact. P
email Resource 0..1 A email address via which contact can be made. P

Legal Basis

Definition
Legal basis used to justify processing of data or use of technology in accordance with a law.
Usage Note
Legal basis (plural: legal bases) are defined by legislations and regulations, whose applicability is usually restricted to specific jurisdictions which can be represented using dpv:hasJurisdiction or dpv:hasLaw. Legal basis can be used without such declarations, e.g. 'Consent', however their interpretation will require association with a law, e.g. 'EU GDPR'.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Legal Resource

Definition
This class represents the legislation, policy or policies that lie behind the Rules that govern the service.
Usage Note
The definition and properties of the Legal Resource class are aligned with the ontology included in "Council conclusions inviting the introduction of the European Legislation Identifier (ELI)". For describing the attributes of a Legal Resource (labels, preferred labels, alternative labels, definition, etc.) we refer to the ELI ontology. In this data specification the use is restricted to instances of this class that follow the ELI URI guidelines.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Licence Document

Definition
A legal document giving official permission to do something with a resource.
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: type .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
type Concept 0..* A type of licence, e.g. indicating 'public domain' or 'royalties required'. A

Linguistic system

Definition
A system of signs, symbols, sounds, gestures, or rules used in communication, e.g. a language.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Literal

Definition
A literal value such as a string or integer; Literals may be typed, e.g. as a date according to xsd:date. Literals that contain human-readable text have an optional language tag as defined by BCP 4715 [[rfc5646]].
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Media type

Definition
A media type, e.g. the format of a computer file.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Period of time

Definition
An interval of time that is named or defined by its start and end dates.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Properties
For this entity the following properties are defined: beginning , end , end date , start date .
Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
beginning Time instant 0..1 The beginning of a period or interval. Link A
end Time instant 0..1 The end of a period or interval. Link A
end date Temporal Literal 0..1 The end of the period. Link A
start date Temporal Literal 0..1 The start of the period. Link A

Personal data

Definition
Data directly or indirectly associated or related to an individual.
Usage Note
This definition of personal data encompasses the concepts used in GDPR Art.4-1 for 'personal data' and ISO/IEC 2700 for 'personally identifiable information (PII)'.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Policy

Definition
A non-empty group of Permissions and/or Prohibitions.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Provenance Statement

Definition
A statement of any changes in ownership and custody of a resource since its creation that are significant for its authenticity, integrity, and interpretation.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Purpose

Definition
This class represents the Purpose or Goal of processing data or using technology.
Usage Note
The purpose or goal here is intended to sufficiently describe the intention or objective of why the data or technology is being used, and should be broader than mere technical descriptions of achieving a capability. For example, "Analyse Data" is an abstract purpose with no indication of what the analyses is for as compared to a purpose such as "Marketing" or "Service Provision" which provide clarity and comprehension of the 'purpose' and can be enhanced with additional descriptions.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Quality certificate

Definition
An annotation that associates a resource (especially, a dataset or a distribution) to another resource (for example, a document) that certifies the resource's quality according to a set of quality assessment rules.
Usage Note
Instances of this class are annotations pointing to quality certificates.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Resource

Definition
Anything described by RDF.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Role

Definition
A role is the function of a resource or agent with respect to another resource, in the context of resource attribution or resource relationships.
Reference in DCAT
Link
Usage Note
Note it is a subclass of skos:Concept.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Standard

Definition
A standard or other specification to which a Dataset or Distribution conforms.
Properties
This specification does not impose any additional requirements to properties for this entity.

Datatypes

The following datatypes are used within this specification.
Class Definition
A file format or physical medium.
A media type or extent.
rdfs:Literal encoded using the relevant ISO 8601 Date and Time compliant string and typed using the appropriate XML Schema datatype (xsd:gYear, xsd:gYearMonth, xsd:date, or xsd:dateTime).
A temporal entity with zero extent or duration.
Object with integer-valued year, month, day, hour and minute properties, a decimal-valued second property, and a boolean timezoned property.
Decimal represents a subset of the real numbers, which can be represented by decimal numerals. The ·value space· of decimal is the set of numbers that can be obtained by multiplying an integer by a non-positive power of ten, i.e., expressible as i × 10^-n where i and n are integers and n >= 0.
Duration represents a duration of time. The ·value space· of duration is a six-dimensional space where the coordinates designate the Gregorian year, month, day, hour, minute, and second components defined in § 5.5.3.2 of [[ISO8601]], respectively.
Hex-encoded binary data. The ·value space· of hexBinary is the set of finite-length sequences of binary octets.
Number derived from integer by setting the value of minInclusive to be 0.

Controlled Vocabularies

The usage of controlled vocabularies in HealthDCAT-AP conforms and extends the usage defined by DCAT-AP.

Requirements for controlled vocabularies

According to the generic DCAT-AP guidelines for publishing controlled vocabularies, controlled vocabularies SHOULD:

Controlled vocabularies to be used

In the table below, a number of properties are listed with controlled vocabularies that MUST be used for the listed properties. The declaration of the following controlled vocabularies as mandatory ensures a minimum level of interoperability.

Property URIUsed for ClassVocabulary nameUsage note
dcat:mediaTypeDistributionIANA Media Types
dcat:themeDatasetDataset Theme VocabularyThe values to be used for this property are the URIs of the concepts in the vocabulary.
dct:accrualPeriodicityDataset,Dataset SeriesEU Vocabularies Frequency Named Authority List
dct:formatDistribution,Data Service EU Vocabularies File Type Named Authority List
dct:languageCatalogue,Dataset, Catalogue Records, DistributionEU Vocabularies Languages Named Authority List
dct:publisherCatalogue,Dataset,Dataset SeriesEU Vocabularies Corporate bodies Named Authority ListThe Corporate bodies NAL must be used for European institutions and a small set of international organisations. In case of other types of organisations, national, regional or local vocabularies should be used.
dct:spatialCatalogue,Dataset,Dataset SeriesEU Vocabularies Continents Named Authority List, EU Vocabularies Countries Named Authority List, EU Vocabularies Places Named Authority List, Geonames The EU Vocabularies Name Authority Lists must be used for continents, countries and places that are in those lists; if a particular location is not in one of the mentioned Named Authority Lists, Geonames URIs must be used.
adms:statusDistributionEU Vocabularies Distribution Status
dct:typeAgentADMS publisher type vocabulary The list of terms in the ADMS publisher type vocabulary is included in the ADMS specification
dct:typeLicence DocumentADMS licence type vocabulary The list of terms in the ADMS licence type vocabulary is included in the ADMS specification
dcatap:availabilityDistributionDistribution availability vocabularyThe list of terms for the avalability levels of a dataset distribution in the DCAT-AP specification.
spdx:algorithmChecksumChecksum algorithm membersThe members listed are considered a controlled vocabulary of supported checksum algorithms.
dct:accessRightsDataset, Data ServiceAccess Rights Named Authority ListUse one of the following values (:public, :restricted, :non-public).

In addition, HealthDCAT introduces new controlled vocabularies that MUST be used for the following listed properties:

Property URIUsed for ClassVocabulary nameUsage note
dct:typeDatasetDataset-type authority tableThis list of terms provide types of datasets. Its main scope is to support dataset categorisation of the EU Open Data Portal. (To create a new entry for PERSONAL_DATA)
healthdcatap:healthCategoryDatasetEHDS Health Categories (Art.33)(to create)
healthdcatap:publishertypeDatasetEHDS Publisher type(to create)

Wikidata as an ontological medical database

In addition to the proposed common controlled vocabularies, which are mandatory to ensure minimal interoperability, healthDCAT-AP relies on [Wikidata] as large-scale, human-readable, machine-readable, multilingual, multidisciplinary, centralised, editable, structured, and linked knowledge-base. Wikidata concept URIs MUST be used for the following properties coding system, code values, conform to, health theme.

Support for implementation

This section provides recommendations for implementers on how to catalogue health resources required by the EHDS Regulation proposal [EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197] as a DCAT-AP metadata structure.

In scope of EHDS

The EHDS Regulation proposal defines the minimum categories of electronic data for secondary use. A Dataset is in scope of the EHDS Regulation proposal if and only if it is included in the categories listed under Article 33:

Minimum categories of electronic data for secondary use
1. Data holders shall make the following categories of electronic data available for secondary use in accordance with the provisions of this Chapter:

Denoting a health Dataset

Each Dataset that is identified by a Health Data Access Body in scope of the EHDS Regulation proposal MUST provide the European Legislation Identifier (ELI) (to create) of the future EHDS Regulation for the property applicable legislation.

Health data categories

When a Dataset is within the scope of the EHDS Regulation proposal, it is mandatory that the property theme takes the value http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/data-theme/HEAL of the Dataset Theme Vocabulary of the Publications Office.
The EHDS Regulation proposal defines 15 electronic health data categories in its Article 33. HealthDCAT-AP introduces a new property health category to indicate the category to which a dataset, belongs. A controlled vocabulary (to create) with all possible values MUST be used for the property health category.

Access rights

When a dataset falls under the purview of the EHDS Regulation Proposal, it is imperative for data holders to clearly specify to the Health Data Access Body the conditions under which the dataset can be accessed. Specifically, the Access Rights property is required to adopt one of the predefined values listed in the Access Rights Named Authority List provided by the Publications Office. This designation informs data users whether the dataset is considered open data or is classified as non-public.

Non-personal electronic health data

According to Article 41 of the EHDS Regulation proposal, "data holders of non-personal electronic health data shall ensure access to data through trusted open databases to ensure unrestricted access for all users and data storage and preservation".
For non-personal electronic health data, it is mandatory that the property Access Rights takes the value http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/access-right/PUBLIC of the Access Rights Named Authority List provided by the Publications Office.

Personal electronic health data

In instances where the dataset is categorised as personal electronic health data, it is mandatory that the property Access Rights takes the value http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/access-right/NON_PUBLIC of the Access Rights Named Authority List.

Data holders are further obliged to declare that the dataset contains personal data:

Data holders are also further encouraged to detail the sensitive nature of the dataset:

Distribution

When a health Dataset is categorised as personal electronic health data, HealthDCAT-AP, in accordance with the National Single Information Points [NSIP] requirements, mandates that applications MUST include at least one distribution with the following essential properties: access URL , byte size , format , rights . Moreover Access URL MUST be the landing page of the Health Data Access Body presenting the dataset. And the applicable legislation MUST be the ELI URI of the EHDS Regulation proposal.

Property Range Card Definition Usage DCAT Reuse
access URL Resource 1..* A URL that provides the access procedure to a Distribution of the Dataset. A URL of a Website that contains information on how to request the data. Link E
byte size xsd:nonNegativeInteger 1..1 The size of a Distribution in bytes. The size in bytes can be approximated Link E
format Media Type or Extent 1..1 The file format of the Distribution. Only one specific format per Distribution. Link E
applicable legislation Legal Resource 1..1 The ELI URI (to create) of the EHDS Regulation proposal that mandates the creation of the Health Data Access Body. E
rights Rights statement 1..1 A statement that specifies rights associated with the Distribution. Link E


When a health Dataset is categorised as non-personal electronic health data, implementers MUST provide descriptions for, at least, one distribution of the dataset according to Article 41 of the EHDS Regulation.

Sample distribution

When a health Dataset is categorised as personal electronic health data, implementers MUST provide descriptions for, at least, one sample Distribution of the dataset. This rule consisting in providing open access subsets ensure meaningful use and interpretation of non-public datasets. These samples could be anonymised or synthetic subsets that retain the original dataset's essential characteristics without revealing any personal information, or it might solely exhibit the dataset's structure [Best Practice 3: Provide structural metadata]. Providing such a sample as a downloadable file can offer insights into the data's format and structure, aiding in understanding and utilisation while ensuring privacy and security. Subsets can be presented as RDF, RDF-izing variable descriptions using vocabularies like the [CSVW] Namespace Vocabulary Terms and Term definitions used for creating Metadata descriptions for Tabular Data.

Identifiers as persistent URIs

As DCAT-AP is a Semantic Web data specification, persistence is associated with the use of persistent URIs (PURIs) for the metadata descriptions. A general advice for DCAT-AP implementers is to use PURIs for all entities, but mostly for Datasets and Data Services.

In the context of healthDCAT-AP, the practice of employing Persistent Uniform Resource Identifiers (PURIs) is mandatory endorsed for the primary identifier property identifier (see example: dct:identifier), as well as for all properties within DCAT that are of range the classes Dataset and Resource (has version, source, is referenced by, related resource, related resource). This approach aligns with best practices of DCAT-AP on identifiers, ensuring that DCAT metadata records and metadata descriptions are not only uniquely identifiable but also consistently and reliably accessible over time. By adhering to this standard, healthDCAT-AP facilitates the precise linking and retrieval of datasets and resources, enhancing interoperability and the utility of health data within the healthdata@EU infrastructure and beyond.

DCAT-AP best practices on identifiers :

RDF Examples

In this section we illustrate the healthDCAT-AP specifications with an example for the LINK-VACC dataset; the sole purpose is to illustrate the metadata of the mains classes dataset [EXAMPLE 2] and distributions [EXAMPLES 3,4,5] . ,

Validation

To support the assessment if a metadata satisfies healthDCAT-AP, the following SHACL templates are provided. The SHACL templates assume that all resources are subject to healthDCAT-AP. It is future work to provide a conditional approach which would support catalogues mixing healthDCAT-AP compliant metadata and metadata records compliant to other application profiles but categorised as Health related.

Quick Reference of Classes and Properties

This section provides a condensed tabular overview of the mentioned classes and properties in this specification. The properties are indicated as mandatory, recommended, optional and deprecated. These terms have the following meaning.

HealthDCAT-AP tabular overview

ClassClass IRIProperty TypePropertyProperty IRI
Activity
http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Activity
Agent
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Agent
Mandatory name
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/name
Agent
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Agent
Recommended type
http://purl.org/dc/terms/type
Attribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#Attribution
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Mandatory applicable legislation
dcatap:applicableLegislation
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Mandatory description
http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Mandatory publisher
http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Mandatory title
http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#dataset
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended geographical coverage
http://purl.org/dc/terms/spatial
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended homepage
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/homepage
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended language
http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended licence
http://purl.org/dc/terms/license
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended modification date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended release date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#service
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Recommended themes
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#themeTaxonomy
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Optional catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#catalog
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Optional creator
http://purl.org/dc/terms/creator
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Optional has part
http://purl.org/dc/terms/hasPart
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Optional record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#record
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Optional rights
http://purl.org/dc/terms/rights
Catalogue
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Catalog
Optional temporal coverage
http://purl.org/dc/terms/temporal
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Mandatory modification date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Mandatory primary topic
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/primaryTopic
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Recommended application profile
http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Recommended change type
http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#status
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Recommended listing date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Optional description
http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Optional language
http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Optional source metadata
http://purl.org/dc/terms/source
Catalogue Record
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#CatalogRecord
Optional title
http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Catalogued Resource
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Resource
Checksum
http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#Checksum
Mandatory algorithm
http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#algorithm
Checksum
http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#Checksum
Mandatory checksum value
http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#checksumValue
Checksum Algorithm
http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#ChecksumAlgorithm
Concept
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#Concept
preferred label
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#prefLabel
Concept Scheme
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#ConceptScheme
title
http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
applicable legislation
dcatap:applicableLegislation
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Mandatory endpoint URL
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#endpointURL
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Mandatory title
http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Recommended application profile
http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Recommended endpoint description
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#endpointDescription
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Recommended keyword
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Recommended publisher
http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Recommended serves dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#servesDataset
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Recommended theme
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#theme
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Optional access rights
http://purl.org/dc/terms/accessRights
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Optional description
http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Optional format
http://purl.org/dc/terms/format
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Optional landing page
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#landingPage
Data Service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DataService
Optional licence
http://purl.org/dc/terms/license
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory access rights
http://purl.org/dc/terms/accessRights
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory applicable legislation
dcatap:applicableLegislation
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory contact point
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#contactPoint
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory dataset distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#distribution
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory description
http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory geographical coverage
http://purl.org/dc/terms/spatial
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory health category
healthdcatap:healthcategory
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory health data access body
healthdcatap:hdab
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory health theme
healthdcatap:healththeme
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory identifier
http://purl.org/dc/terms/identifier
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory keyword
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#keyword
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory provenance
http://purl.org/dc/terms/provenance
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory publisher
http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory publisher note
healthdcatap:publishernote
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory publisher type
healthdcatap:publishertype
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory purpose
dpv:hasPurpose
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory sample
http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#sample
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory theme
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#theme
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory title
http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Mandatory type
http://purl.org/dc/terms/type
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended analytics
healthdcatap:analytics
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended code values
healthdcatap:hasCodeValues
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended coding system
healthdcatap:hasCodingSystem
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended conforms to
http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended documentation
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/page
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended frequency
http://purl.org/dc/terms/accrualPeriodicity
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended is referenced by
http://purl.org/dc/terms/isReferencedBy
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended landing page
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#landingPage
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended language
http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended legal basis
dpv:hasLegalBasis
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended max typical age
healthdcatap:maxtypicalage
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended min typical age
healthdcatap:mintypicalage
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended number of records
healthdcatap:numberOfRecords
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended number of unique individuals
healthdcatap:numberOfUniqueIndividuals
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended personal data
dpv:hasPersonalData
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended population coverage
healthdcatap:populationcoverage
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended quality annotation
dqv:hasQualityannotation
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended related resource
http://purl.org/dc/terms/relation
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended source
http://purl.org/dc/terms/source
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended temporal coverage
http://purl.org/dc/terms/temporal
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Recommended temporal resolution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#temporalResolution
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional alternative
http://purl.org/dc/terms/alternative
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional creator
http://purl.org/dc/terms/creator
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional has version
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#hasVersion
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional in series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#inSeries
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional modification date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional other identifier
http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#identifier
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional qualified attribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#qualifiedAttribution
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional qualified relation
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#qualifiedRelation
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional release date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional retention period
healthdcatap:retentionPeriod
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional spatial resolution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#spatialResolutionInMeters
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional version
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#version
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional version notes
http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#versionNotes
Dataset
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Dataset
Optional was generated by
http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#wasGeneratedBy
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Mandatory Applicable legislation
dcatap:applicableLegislation
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Mandatory title
http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Recommended contact point
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#contactPoint
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Recommended geographical coverage
http://purl.org/dc/terms/spatial
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Recommended publisher
http://purl.org/dc/terms/publisher
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Recommended temporal coverage
http://purl.org/dc/terms/temporal
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Optional description
http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Optional frequency
http://purl.org/dc/terms/accrualPeriodicity
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Optional modification date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Dataset Series
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#DatasetSeries
Optional release date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Mandatory access URL
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#accessURL
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Mandatory applicablelegislation
dcatap:applicableLegislation
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Recommended format
http://purl.org/dc/terms/format
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Recommended licence
http://purl.org/dc/terms/license
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional access service
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#accessService
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional availability
http://data.europa.eu/r5r/availability
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional byte size
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#byteSize
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional checksum
http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#checksum
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional compression format
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#compressFormat
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional description
http://purl.org/dc/terms/description
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional documentation
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/page
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional download URL
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#downloadURL
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional has policy
http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl/2/hasPolicy
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional language
http://purl.org/dc/terms/language
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional linked schemas
http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional media type
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#mediaType
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional modification date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/modified
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional packaging format
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#packageFormat
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional release date
http://purl.org/dc/terms/issued
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional rights
http://purl.org/dc/terms/rights
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional spatial resolution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#spatialResolutionInMeters
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional status
http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#status
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional temporal resolution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#temporalResolution
Distribution
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Distribution
Optional title
http://purl.org/dc/terms/title
Document
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Document
Frequency
http://purl.org/dc/terms/Frequency
Geometry
http://www.w3.org/ns/locn#Geometry
Identifier
http://www.w3.org/ns/adms#Identifier
Mandatory notation
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/core#notation
Kind
http://www.w3.org/2006/vcard/ns#Kind
Licence Document
http://purl.org/dc/terms/LicenseDocument
Recommended type
http://purl.org/dc/terms/type
Linguistic system
http://purl.org/dc/terms/LinguisticSystem
Literal
http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Literal
Location
http://purl.org/dc/terms/Location
Recommended bbox
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#bbox
Location
http://purl.org/dc/terms/Location
Recommended centroid
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#centroid
Location
http://purl.org/dc/terms/Location
Optional geometry
http://www.w3.org/ns/locn#geometry
Media type
http://purl.org/dc/terms/MediaType
Period of time
http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime
Recommended end date
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#endDate
Period of time
http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime
Recommended start date
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#startDate
Period of time
http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime
Optional beginning
http://www.w3.org/2006/time#hasBeginning
Period of time
http://purl.org/dc/terms/PeriodOfTime
Optional end
http://www.w3.org/2006/time#hasEnd
Policy
http://www.w3.org/ns/odrl/2/Policy
Provenance Statement
http://purl.org/dc/terms/ProvenanceStatement
Relationship
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Relationship
Mandatory had role
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#hadRole
Relationship
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Relationship
Mandatory relation
http://purl.org/dc/terms/relation
Resource
http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#Resource
Rights statement
http://purl.org/dc/terms/RightsStatement
Role
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#Role
Standard
http://purl.org/dc/terms/Standard

DCAT-AP 2.x vs 3.0 deprecated properties and classes

The following URIs used in DCAT-AP release 2.x for properties have been deprecated in DCAT-AP 3.0 [[vocab-dcat-3]] in favor for the URIs within the DCAT namespace.

To identify these deprecations, a SHACL shape is provided.

Acknowledgments

The author extends sincere gratitude to all members of the WP6 Technical Working Group [June 2023-December 2023] for their invaluable contributions to the design of the healthDCAT-AP. Special appreciation is directed towards Pavlina Fragkou, Makx Dekkers, and Bert Van Nuffelen from Interoperable Europe of the European Commission for their exceptional technical support. Additionally, heartfelt thanks go to Andrea Perego, whose vision inspired the EU Health Information System unit at Sciensano to embark on the HealthDCAT Application Profile project during its nascent stages.

D. References

D.1 Normative references

[ADMS]
Joinup. Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS). European Commission. URL: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/solution/asset-description-metadata-schema-adms
[ADMS-SKOS]
Joinup. ADMS Controlled Vocabularies. European Commission. URL: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SEMICeu/ADMS-AP/master/purl.org/ADMS_SKOS_v1.00.rdf
[BCP47]
Tags for Identifying Languages. A. Phillips, Ed.; M. Davis, Ed.. IETF. September 2009. Best Current Practice. URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5646
[CNT]
Representing Content in RDF. 2 February 2017. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/Content-in-RDF/
[CORE-LOCATION-VOCABULARY]
ISA Programme Location Core Vocabulary. 23 March 2015. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/Content-in-RDF/
[CORE-ORGANIZATION-ONTOLOGY]
Core organization ontology. 16 January 2014. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-org/
[DCAT-AP]
DCAT Application Profile for data portals in Europe. Version 2.0.1. European Commission. 8 June 2020. URL: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/solution/dcat-application-profile-data-portals-europe
[DCAT-AP-20200608]
DCAT Application Profile for data portals in Europe. Version 2.0.1. European Commission. 8 June 2020. URL: http://data.europa.eu/w21/32d70b6e-0d27-40d9-9230-017e4cd00bcc
[DCAT-AP-guideline-spatial]
How should dct:spatial and dct:Location be used?. European Commission. URL: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/release/how-should-dctspatial-and-dctlocation-be-used
[DCAT-AP-HVD]
Usage guidelines of DCAT-AP for High-Value Datasets. European Commission. 19 June 2023. URL: https://semiceu.github.io/DCAT-AP/releases/2.2.0-hvd/
[DCAT-AP-v2.0.1]
DCAT Application Profile for data portals in Europe. Version 2.0.1.. European Commission. 08 June 2020. URL: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/semantic-interoperability-community-semic/solution/dcat-application-profile-data-portals-europe/release/201-0
[DCAT-AP-v3.0]
DCAT Application Profile for data portals in Europe. Version 3.0..
[DCAT-AP-HVD]
DCAT-AP High Value Datasets.
[DCAT-AP-v2.1.0-Guideline-Dataservices]
DCAT-AP Usage guide on Datasets, Distributions and Data Services. European Commission. URL: https://github.com/SEMICeu/DCAT-AP/blob/2.1.0-draft/releases/2.1.0/usageguide-dataset-distribution-dataservice.md
[DCTERMS]
DCMI Metadata Terms. DCMI Usage Board. DCMI. 20 January 2020. DCMI Recommendation. URL: https://www.dublincore.org/specifications/dublin-core/dcmi-terms/
[DWBP]
Data on the Web Best Practices. Bernadette Farias Loscio; Caroline Burle; Newton Calegari. W3C. 31 January 2017. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/dwbp/
[EC-MMTIS-DR]
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2017/1926 of 31 May 2017 supplementing Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council with regard to the provision of EU-wide multimodal travel information services (Text with EEA relevance.). European Commission. URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32017R1926
[ELI]
European Legislation Identifier (ELI) system. EU Publications Office. URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli-register/eu_publications_office.html
[EU-EIP-CMC]
Information about the Coordinated Metadata Catalogue (CMC) by EU EIP. EU EIP Consortium. URL: https://www.its-platform.eu/achievement/monitoring-harmonisation-of-naps/
[EU-EIP-QP]
Information about the Quality Frameworks by EU EIP. EU EIP Consortium. URL: https://www.its-platform.eu/achievement/quality-of-european-its-services-and-their-data/
[EU-TEN-T]
Information about Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). European Commission. URL: https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/infrastructure-and-investment/trans-european-transport-network-ten-t_en
[EUV-AR]
Named Authority List: Access rights. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/access-right
[EUV-CB]
Named Authority List: Corporate bodies. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/corporate-body
[EUV-CONT]
Named Authority List: Continents. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/continent
[EUV-COUNTRIES]
Named Authority List: Countries. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/country
[EUV-FREQ]
Named Authority List: Frequencies. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/frequency
[EUV-FT]
Named Authority List: File types. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/file-type
[EUV-LANG]
Named Authority List: Languages. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/language
[EUV-LICENCES]
Named Authority List: Licences. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/licence
[EUV-PLACES]
Named Authority List: Places. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/place
[EUV-THEMES]
Named Authority List: Data Themes. Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://publications.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/at-dataset/-/resource/dataset/data-theme
[EUV-THEMES-TRANSPORT]
Named Authority List: Data Themes - Label: Transport . Publications Office of the European Union. URL: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/concept/-/resource?uri=http://publications.europa.eu/resource/authority/data-theme/TRAN
[FOAF]
FOAF Vocabulary Specification 0.99 (Paddington Edition). Dan Brickley; Libby Miller. FOAF project. 14 January 2014. URL: http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec
[GEODCAT-AP-v2.0.0]
GeoDCAT-AP - Version 2.0.0. European Commission. 23 December 2020. URL: https://semiceu.github.io/GeoDCAT-AP/releases/
[GEONAMES]
Geonames. URL: http://geonames.org/
[IANA-MEDIA-TYPES]
Media Types. IANA. URL: https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/
[INSPIRE-LPA]
INSPIRE Registry: Limitations on public access. European Commission. URL: http://inspire.ec.europa.eu/metadata-codelist/LimitationsOnPublicAccess
[JSON-LD11]
JSON-LD 1.1. Gregg Kellogg; Pierre-Antoine Champin; Dave Longley. W3C. 16 July 2020. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/json-ld11/
[LOCN]
ISA Programme Location Core Vocabulary. Andrea Perego; Michael Lutz. European Commission. 23 March 2015. Second version in w3.org/ns space. URL: http://www.w3.org/ns/locn
[NAPCORE-Metadata-Working-Group]
Information about the NAPCORE Sub-Working Group on Metadata. NAPCORE Consortium. URL: https://napcore.eu/metadata/
[NAPCORE-NAPs]
NAPCORE information about National Access Points (NAPs). NAPCORE Consortium. URL: https://napcore.eu/description-naps/
[NAPCORE-NB]
NAPCORE information about National Bodies (NAPs). NAPCORE Consortium. URL: https://napcore.eu/national-bodies/
[NUTS-CODES]
EU NUTS classification as Linked Data. NUTS-RDF project. URL: http://nuts.geovocab.org/
[ODRS]
Open Data Rights Statement Vocabulary. Leigh Dodds. ODI. 29 July 2013. URL: http://schema.theodi.org/odrs
[OGC-EPSG]
EPSG CRS Register. OGC. URL: http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/
[OWL-REF]
OWL Web Ontology Language Reference. Mike Dean; Guus Schreiber. W3C. 10 February 2004. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/owl-ref/
[RDF-SCHEMA]
RDF Schema 1.1. Dan Brickley; Ramanathan Guha. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-schema/
[RDF-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR]
RDF 1.1 XML Syntax. Fabien Gandon; Guus Schreiber. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/
[RDF11-CONCEPTS]
RDF 1.1 Concepts and Abstract Syntax. Richard Cyganiak; David Wood; Markus Lanthaler. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf11-concepts/
[RFC2119]
Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels. S. Bradner. IETF. March 1997. Best Current Practice. URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119
[RFC3966]
The tel URI for Telephone Numbers. H. Schulzrinne. IETF. December 2004. Proposed Standard. URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3966
[RFC6068]
The 'mailto' URI Scheme. M. Duerst; L. Masinter; J. Zawinski. IETF. October 2010. Proposed Standard. URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6068
[RFC8174]
Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words. B. Leiba. IETF. May 2017. Best Current Practice. URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174
[SEMVER]
Semantic Versioning Specification (SemVer). URL: https://semver.org/
[SKOS-REFERENCE]
SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference. Alistair Miles; Sean Bechhofer. W3C. 18 August 2009. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
[SPDX]
SPDX 2.2. SPDX. URL: http://spdx.org/rdf/terms#
[Turtle]
RDF 1.1 Turtle. Eric Prud'hommeaux; Gavin Carothers. W3C. 25 February 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/turtle/
[VCARD-RDF]
vCard Ontology - for describing People and Organizations. Renato Iannella; James McKinney. W3C. 22 May 2014. W3C Note. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/vcard-rdf/
[VOCAB-ADMS]
Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS). Phil Archer; Gofran Shukair. W3C. 1 August 2013. W3C Note. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-adms/
[VOCAB-DCAT-2]
Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) - Version 2. Riccardo Albertoni; David Browning; Simon Cox; Alejandra Gonzalez Beltran; Andrea Perego; Peter Winstanley. W3C. 4 February 2020. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat-2/
[VOCAB-DQV]
Data on the Web Best Practices: Data Quality Vocabulary. Riccardo Albertoni; Antoine Isaac. W3C. 15 December 2016. W3C Note. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dqv/
[VOCAB-ODRL]
ODRL Vocabulary & Expression 2.2. Renato Iannella; Michael Steidl; Stuart Myles; Víctor Rodríguez-Doncel. W3C. 15 February 2018. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/odrl-vocab/
[VOCAB-ORG]
The Organization Ontology. Dave Reynolds. W3C. 16 January 2014. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-org/
[Web-Annotation-Data-Model]
Web Annotation Data Model. W3C. 23 February 2017. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-model/
[WEB-ANOTATION-ONTOLOGY]
Web Annotation Ontology. 23 February 2017. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/annotation-vocab/
[XMLSCHEMA11-2]
W3C XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) 1.1 Part 2: Datatypes. David Peterson; Sandy Gao; Ashok Malhotra; Michael Sperberg-McQueen; Henry Thompson; Paul V. Biron et al. W3C. 5 April 2012. W3C Recommendation. URL: https://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema11-2/

D.2 Informative references

[CLDR]
CLDR - Unicode Common Locale Data Repository. BCP47, transform_mt.xml. UNICODE Consortium. URL: http://unicode.org/cldr/trac/browser/trunk/common/bcp47/transform_mt.xml
[CONNEG]
Apache Web Server: content negotiation. Apache Foundation. URL: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/current/content-negotiation.html
[DataCite]
DataCite Metadata Schema. DataCite Metadata Working Group. DataCite e.V. 30 March 2021. URL: https://schema.datacite.org/
[DataCite-RIS]
DataCite Resource Identifier Scheme. URL: http://purl.org/spar/datacite/ResourceIdentifierScheme
[DCAT-AP-EG]
Joinup. DCAT-AP Implementation Guidelines: How to extend DCAT-AP?. European Commission. URL: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/release/dcat-ap-how-extend-dcat-ap
[DOI]
Digital Object Identifier. DOI. URL: http://www.doi.org/
[DXWG]
Dataset Exchange Working Group (DXWG). W3C. URL: https://www.w3.org/2017/dxwg/
[EC-ITS-Directive]
Directive 2010/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 July 2010 on the framework for the deployment of Intelligent Transport Systems in the field of road transport and for interfaces with other modes of transport Text with EEA relevance. European Commission. URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32010L0040
[EZID]
EZID. URL: http://n2t.net/ezid
[GLD]
Government Linked Data (GLD) Working Group. W3C. URL: https://www.w3.org/2011/gld/
[ISO-639]
Code for the representation of names of languages. ISO/TC 37/SC 2. ISO. 1988. International Standard. URL: https://www.iso.org/standard/4766.html
[MAST-ADS]
Referencing Data Sets in Astronomical Literature. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST). URL: http://archive.stsci.edu/pub_dsn.html
[EHDS2PILOTPROJECT]
Website of the EHDS2 pilot project. EHDS2 Pilot Project Consortium. URL: https://ehds2pilot.eu/
[EUR-Lex - 52022PC0197]
Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the European Health Data Space, COM/2022/197 final.
[EUR-Lex - 32016R0679]
REGULATION (EU) 2016/679 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).
[EUR-Lex - 32022R0868]
REGULATION (EU) 2022/868 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 30 May 2022 on European data governance and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 (Data Governance Act).
[EUR-Lex - 32023R2854]
REGULATION (EU) 2023/2854 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 13 December 2023 on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data and amending Regulation (EU) 2017/2394 and Directive (EU) 2020/1828 (Data Act).
[EUR-Lex - 32021R0522]
REGULATION (EU) 2021/522 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 24 March 2021 establishing a Programme for the Union’s action in the field of health (‘EU4Health Programme’) for the period 2021-2027, and repealing Regulation (EU) No 282/2014.
[Data Governance Act - NSIP]
The European Single Access Point on data.europa.eu: Harvesting guidelines.
[Wikidata]
Wikidata: A large-scale collaborative ontological medical database Houcemeddine Turki, Thomas Shafee, Mohamed Ali Hadj Taieb, Mohamed Ben Aouicha, Denny Vrandečić, Diptanshu Das, Helmi Hamdi, Journal of Biomedical Informatics Volume 99, November 2019, 10329
[Best Practice 3: Provide structural metadata]
W3C Data on the Web Best Practices
[CSVW]
W3C CSVW Namespace Vocabulary Terms
[Common European Data Spaces]
Shaping Europe’s digital future: Common European Data spaces
[RFC6497]
BCP 47 Extension T - Transformed Content. M. Davis; A. Phillips; Y. Umaoka; C. Falk. IETF. February 2012. Informational. URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6497
[W3ID]
Permanent Identifiers for the Web. W3C Permanent Identifier Community Group. URL: https://w3id.org/