VOTE: RO-Crate 1.2.0-RC1

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This is a release candidate that is subject to vote by the RO-Crate steering committee

RO-Crate Metadata Specification 1.2.0 (RC1)

Note: Release candidate, the permalinks do not work yet

• Permalink: https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.2
  -- RC: https://www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/specification/1.2-RC1/
• Published: 2025-04-28 (Release candidate)
• Publisher: researchobject.org community
• Status: Release Candidate
• JSON-LD context: https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.2/context
  -- RC: https://www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/specification/1.2-RC1/context.jsonld
• This version: https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.2
  -- RC: https://www.researchobject.org/ro-crate/specification/1.2-RC1/
• Alternate formats: Web pages,
  single-page HTML,
  PDF,
  RO-Crate JSON-LD, RO-Crate HTML
• Previous version: https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.1
• Cite as: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13751027 (this version)
  https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3406497 (any version)
  -- RC Zenodo: https://zenodo.org/records/13751027?preview=1&token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzUxMiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjJkOTAwZGI5LWQzMmMtNDhiNS04MDdkLTdhZDEzMzYwYjRhMyIsImRhdGEiOnt9LCJyYW5kb20iOiIyMDVkZWFiYzVmZjc1ODA4ZDEwOGZiZDM1NjhjOGY3YyJ9.nwiEJqotMuCi0mj-PgEe-KA1l5q1Ep8XYLcN_QROdU-uzLpMiqEnDjWfnCjhtZBVPKczhsOrqNPfRRFUgRuy_w
• Editors: Peter Sefton, Eoghan Ó Carragáin, Stian Soiland-Reyes
• Authors: Peter Sefton, Eoghan Ó Carragáin, Stian Soiland-Reyes, Oscar Corcho, Daniel Garijo, Raul Palma, Frederik Coppens, Carole Goble, José María Fernández, Kyle Chard, Jose Manuel Gomez-Perez, Michael R Crusoe, Ignacio Eguinoa, Nick Juty, Kristi Holmes, Jason A. Clark, Salvador Capella-Gutierrez, Alasdair J. G. Gray, Stuart Owen, Alan R Williams, Giacomo Tartari, Finn Bacall, Thomas Thelen, Hervé Ménager, Laura Rodríguez Navas, Paul Walk, brandon whitehead, Mark Wilkinson, Paul Groth, Erich Bremer, LJ Garcia Castro, Karl Sebby, Alexander Kanitz, Ana Trisovic, Gavin Kennedy, Mark Graves, Jasper Koehorst, Simone Leo, Marc Portier, Paul Brack, Milan Ojsteršek, Bert Droesbeke, Chenxu Niu, Kosuke Tanabe, Tomasz Miksa, Marco La Rosa, Cedric Decruw, Andreas Czerniak, Jeremy Jay, Sergio Serra, Ronald Siebes, Shaun de Witt, Shady El Damaty, Douglas Lowe, Xuanqi Li, Sveinung Gundersen, Muhammad Radifar, Rudolf Wittner, Oliver Woolland, Paul De Geest, Douglas Fils, Florian Wetzels, Raül Sirvent, Abigail Miller, Jake Emerson, Davide Fucci, Bruno P. Kinoshita, Maciek Bąk, Jens Hollunder, Martin Weise, Vartika Bisht, Toshiyuki Nishiyama Hiraki, Bram Ulrichts, Michael Falk, Eli Chadwick, Daniel Bauer, James Love, Eleni Adamidi, Josh Moore, Lars Schöbitz, Andreas Meier, Juan Fuentes, Edan Bainglass, Balazs E. Pataki

This document specifies a method, known as RO-Crate (Research Object Crate), of aggregating and describing data for distribution, re-use, publishing, preservation and archiving. RO-Crates aggregate data into a Dataset, and may describe any resource including files, URI-addressable resources, or use other addressing schemes to locate digital or physical data. Describing resources includes technical metadata such as file sizes and types as well as contextual information including how and where datasets and files were created, how they were collated and collected, who was involved in the process, what equipment and software was used, who funded the work, how to cite it, and crucially, how it may be reused, and by whom.

The core of RO-Crate is a machine-readable linked-data document in JSON-LD format known as an RO-Crate Metadata Document. RO-Crate metadata documents can, to a large extent, be created and processed just like any other JSON: knowledge of JSON-LD is not needed, unless extending RO-Crate with additional concepts or combining RO-Crate with other Linked Data technologies.

While providing the formal specification for RO-Crate, this document also aims to be a practical guide for software authors to create tools for generating and consuming research data packages, with explanation by examples.

Changelog

• RO-Crate 1.2.0
  • Clarified that the RO-Crate Metadata Descriptor MUST have @id of ro-crate-metadata.json by removing conflicting statements elsewhere in the specification #365
  • Updated the Bioschemas namespace for properties from https://bioschemas.org/ComputationalWorkflow# to https://bioschemas.org/properties/. This change affects only the input and output properties in the JSON-LD context.
  • Change: Replaced name-based algorithm for finding root #198 #365
  • Updated algorithm to always use string filter to find root #189 #421
    (see algorithm)
  • Change: Files on the web should now use contentUrl for direct download #259
  • Clarify entity terminology and when File/Dataset entities are and are not data entities #204 #426
  • Update JSON-LD context to schema.org 22.0. Note that upstream adds >230 terms, and removed terms AuthenticContent MissingContext, constrainingProperty (now constraintProperty), measuredValue, observedNode . #263 #274
  • Remove custom mapping of funding for Bioschemas (now officially http://schema.org/funding)
  • Added localPath to JSON-LD context (https://w3id.org/ro/terms#localPath) and described its use in web-based entities #406 #390
  • Updated for ComputationalWorkflow 1.0 profile #185
  • Clarified Directories on the web format is a media type, not extension #205
  • New: Extended introduction with a running example #227 #215 #219 -- see also RO-Crate tutorials.
  • New: Added section Profiles and the concept Profile Crate #250 #251 #255 #256 #407
  • Define terms for Profiles #248
  • Added subsection for grouping extensions in a profile #233 #233
  • Allow more types on root #182 #223
  • Added subsection on root data entity identifier #183
  • New: Introduces distinction of Attached/Detached RO-Crate #248 #189 #183 #390 #405
  • Included Attached/Detached RO-Crate in terminology #248
  • Rephrased description of payload files #183 #189
  • Describes ro-crate-preview.html as entity #106 #210
  • Added usage of DefinedTerm; rdfs:label and comment optional; replaced example #232 #208 #106
  • Added section on converting Attached/Detached RO-Crates #189
  • Added Common principles for RO-Crate entities #225 #260 #404
  • Added note on ELN (Electronic Lab Notebook) implementation to appendix section on combining with other packaging schemes #389
  • Clarified mandatory metadata for the Root Data Entity #404
  • Many sections reviewed to improve language and examples #378 #382 #404 #410 #411 #412 #413 #414 #415 #418 #425

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This discussion was created from the release RO-Crate 1.2.0-RC1.

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Vote in #14 was passed, for any issues henceforth, please raise them in https://github.com/ResearchObject/ro-crate/issues