Specification Overview

Source definitions and protocols

The vocabulary is presented in several ways, as Linked Open Data using the Resource Description Framework (RDF) family of languages, as well as a GraphQL reference and a UML model. We want to support RDF based and non-RDF based uses of the vocabulary, basically any way that people want to use software and data on the internet to help create economic networks. This has led to some blending of modeling/diagramming techniques to try to make this as clean as possible for different technical needs.

We will add formats and protocols as requested.

Valueflows and other vocabularies

The core Valueflows vocabulary includes some concepts for which we use other RDF-based vocabularies. This means that it expects people developing those applications to use VF together with other vocabularies / web ontologies. Each specification format in this section will say what it includes and what it doesn't. These appear in the UML Diagram, with specific details in the Other Namespace page. They do not appear in the source turtle file or the reports derived from that, on the REF Specification page.

In the future, we will also add selected explicit mappings between Valueflows and other RDF-based vocabularies, as needs appear.