​(Q&A Section: To keep transparency this section will be updated as questions come in and are answered by the Allotrope Product Team. Details will be anonymized Product Team)

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Q&A

Added May 4th

Q:Do we have to generate the ASM schema from the SHACL, or would there be any alternatives?
A: Generation of the ASM schema from the same Excel spreadsheet as the SHACL file is derived from is an acceptable approach, as this maintains the same data model compatibility.

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Added April 30th

Q: What is the purpose of the RFP?

A: This RFP calls for the development of a schema definition and related tooling to support a specialized data model transformation process. The development is required to enable the use of a simplified syntactic representation of the current ADM. The simplified representation is expected to accelerate the adoption of Allotrope standardized taxonomy, ontology, and structured data model(s), thus enabling standardized interpretations.

 

Q: What is the ASM Model?

A: The Allotrope Simple Model (ASM) model will leverage and extend the standardized Allotrope ontology and ADM models of different analytical domains which have already been defined and governed by Allotrope subject matter experts. While the ADMs are defined using RDF format, the ASMs will be defined using simple formats such as JSON syntax (or JSON-LD). This extended approach will make the data accessible in a wide variety of programming languages, tools, and applications.

 

Q: What is the ADM to ASM model transformation tool?

A: The ADM to ASM model transformation tool is a software utility for schema transformation from an ADM which is represented as SHACL shape file to the ASM schema

 

Q: What type of ADMs are in scope for the ASM model transformation tool? Is Graph models included?

A: The ADM to ASM model transformation tool is limited to Tabular models as well as it’s extension for Aggregation models. Graph models are not in scope for this RFP.

 

Q: Does the ADM to ASM model transformation tool perform a data conversion?

A: No, it is purely a schema transformation software utility

 

Q: Who is the user of the ADM to ASM model transformation tool? When is it used?

A: The ADM to ASM model transformation tool is used during the model development and governance process (only!). In addition to the ADM, an ASM will be generated by the tool. The tool will be typically used by the developers of the ADM and the ASM or by Product Team that is in charge on the execution of the governance process.

 

Q: What is the input to the ASM model transformation tool?

A:  The input to the ASM model transformation tool is the ADM file which is represented by SHACL shape file written in Turtle format.

 

Q: Can you clarify what is Bidirectional Compatibility between the ADM and the ASM

A: Please refer to section 3.4.2 in the RFP. In addition to the ADM to ASM model transformation tool, the bidder proposed methodology shall guarantee bidirectional compatibility of the instance RDF “data graph” to the proposed “instance data” with no data loss. A trivial option to ensure such compatibility is to demonstrate that we can achieve a full circle of data transformation. That means transforming the RDF “data graph” to the proposed “instance data”, and then back to an identical RDF “data graph” to the original RDF “data graph”. This will guarantee bidirectional compatibility.

 

Q: What is the preferred software language for writing the tool?

A: The tool shall be written in a widely used programming language such as Python (if written in Python it should be compatible with the most recent releases of Python versions 3.7.x or newer) or Java (if written in Java it should be compatible with Java LTS (long-term support) Java 11). C# is also a possible option.

 

Q: How to represent multidimensional array with the ASM?

A: This is part of the proposal. A binding to Data Cube (multidimensional array) representation, as well as the actual Data Cube storage format, shall be proposed as an integral part of the schema definition. This model shall be consistent with specific ADMs where the associated ADF file stores Data Cube related metadata within the Data Description using an RDF Data Model. Please refer to section 3.5.4 for details about Multidimensional arrays representation. 

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