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VAEM stands for "Vocabulary for Attaching Essential Metadata". The purpose of VAEM is to provide, by import, a foundation for commonly needed resources when building an ontology. An effort has been made to restrict these resources to a minimal level. In some ways DC, Dublin Core, could have provided such a foundation. Importing DC unfortunately causes "ontology glut", through the import of many DC Terms. VAEM attaches basic metadata properties and dimension properties, such as domain, discipline, aspect and viewpoint, to the 'owl:Ontology' class to fully qualify the ontology. What VAEM regards as 'essential metadata' is data about dates and times, confidentiality, and other characterisitic qualifiers of the ontology, but also references to where a ontology is documented and where to find ontology Governance, Attribution and Provenance. For the latter, some properties from the VOAG ontology are used, notably, 'voag:hasGovernance', 'voag:withAttributionTo', and 'voag:hasLicenceType'. VAEM also defines classes for representing enumerations and enumerated values.

Ontology Metadata

VAEM Catalog Entry

Catalog Entry

An 'Attribution' specifies how credit should be given when citing the creators of a piece of work. Attribution must use the specified attribution text and optionally use logos that are provided in the attribution details below., with the names of points of contact.

Attribution text should be stated as follows:

"The LinkedModel VAEM Ontology is issued under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Attribution should be made to <a href="http://www.topquadrant.com">TopQuadrant, Inc.</a>"

TopQuadrant attribution

Governance of VAEM

Governance concerns how an artifact is provisioned and managed over its lifecycle. Governance also concerns the status tracking and processes that need to exist on information objects and services for a successful initiaitve, mission, program, or project. Such governance needs to outline the relationships between all internal and external groups involved, describe the proper flow of information regarding to all stakeholders, ensure the appropriate review of issues encountered and ensure that required approvals and direction are obtained at each appropriate stage.

VAEM Provenance

Provenance specifies the origin or source of some artifact. The primary purpose of provenance is to capture the time, place, and if appropriate the person responsible, for the creation, production or provisioning of The artifact. Provenance also captures a record of how a version may have been superceded by another version of the artifact.

VAEM Pedigree

Pedigree captures aspects of an artifact that have to do with maturity, quality, salience, and accredidation.