Skip to content

Agent Patterns

Scope

This content is in intended to convey Best Practice patterns in agent authority content

Audience

Technical agent authority creators.

All the patterns documented here assume the use of Semantic Web methods for data management and access.

Outcome

Technical agent authority creators should learn both what KurrawongAI considers to be Best Practice for certain aspects of agent authorities and also how KurrawongAI and other agent creation and publication tools support the pattern.

Constructing Agent Identifiers

What kind of Persistent Identifiers should we mint for agents?

Context

Agents, be they individual persons or organizations, cannot be reliably identified via their names and should be uniquely identified.

Solution

Agents can be uniquely and persistently identified, much the same as we would identify concepts in a vocabulary. We can add a Persistent Identifier (PID) using one of two approaches:

  1. with a pre-structured pattern specified in a catalogue system or metadata profile
  2. by reusing an existing known identifier for that agent

Pre-structured identifier patterns

Agent PIDs may follow a structure mandated by some cataloguing system or metadata profile. Below are examples from the Indigenous Data Network and the Linked Data PID Register.

Indigenous Data Network

The IDN Catalogue Profile specifies an IRI structure for a PID:

  • A stem: https://data.idnau.org/pid/
  • A subdirectory indicating a sub-class - for an agent, this will usually be an organisation or a person, indicated by /org/ and /person/ respectively:
  • https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/
  • https://data.idnau.org/pid/person/
  • A suffix. This might be completely opaque (such as from the UUID scheme) or based on an existing identifier for the agent (see ), e.g.
  • https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/18d04115-4633-4aed-b164-ac3c209b4307 [UUID suffix]
  • https://data.idnau.org/pid/person/34d5d6aa-a5b7-4e3a-91f8-117ffeb474d1 [UUID suffix]
Linked Data PID Register

The Australian Government Linked Data Working Group (AGLDWG) maintains a PID Register for various entities, including Organisations. In this registry, an Organisation PID is made up of:

  • A stem: https://linked.data.gov.au/
  • A subdirectory indicating a class, e.g. https://linked.data.gov.au/org/
  • An identifier, e.g. https://linked.data.gov.au/org/abs [Australian Bureau of Statistics]

Reusing identifiers as a PID

If an agent has an existing known identifier, such as an ORCID for persons or a Research Organization Registry ID for Organizations, you can reuse that in its entirety as a PID.

Some widely used agentic systems that mint identifiers include:

  • Open Researcher and Contributor ID (https://orcid.org)
  • Research Organization Registry (https://ror.org)
  • Australian Business Number (https://abnregistration.com.au)

ORCID example

PREFIX aarr: <https://data.idnau.org/pid/vocab/aarr/>
PREFIX dcat: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#>
PREFIX id: <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/identifiers/>
PREFIX sdo: <https://schema.org/>

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5640-3202>
    a sdo:Person ;
    dcat:qualifiedRelation [
    a dcat:Relationship ;
       dcat:hadRole aarr:memberOf ;
       sdo:agent <https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/dewr> 
    ] ;
    sdo:name "Les Kneebone" ;
    sdo:identifier "https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5640-3202"^^id:orcid ;
.
In this example, an ORCID has been used as the IRI. Additionally, the ORCID has optionally been added as sdo:identifier.

Example: Research Organization Registry (ROR) identifier

PREFIX id: <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/identifiers/>
PREFIX sdo: <https://schema.org/>
PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>

<https://ror.org/03y7q9t39>
    a sdo:Organization ;
    sdo:url "https://www.canterbury.ac.nz"^^xsd:anyURI ;
    sdo:name "University of Canterbury" ;
    sdo:identifier 
       "https://ror.org/03y7q9t39"^^id:ror ,
       "https://isni.org/isni/0000000513611983"^^id:isni ;
.

In the ROR example, and ROR ID has been used as the IRI. Additionally, an ID from both https://ror.org and https://isni.oclc.org is also expressed as sdo:identifier.

PID Suffix for a Pre-structured Identifier

If using a Pre-structured identifier patter, there may be options for minting a suffix. You might use:

  • a name or acronym from the agent
  • an identifier associated with the agent
  • an opaque string such as from the UUID scheme

Note

Agent names or acronyms may not be unique in the context of your database!
Exercise caution when using an agent name for a PID suffix.

Example: acronym as suffix 

<https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/abs-coatsis>
Example: identifier as suffix 
<https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/78-094-372-050>
    a sdo:Organization ;
    sdo:identifier "78094372 50"^^id:ausbn ;
    sdo:name "Productivity Commission" ;
.
Example: UUID as suffix 
<https://data.idnau.org/pid/person/34d5d6aa-a5b7-4e3a-91f8-117ffeb474d1>
    a sdo:Person ;
    sdo:honorificTitle "PhD Scholar" ;
    dcat:qualifiedRelation [
    a dcat:Relationship ;
       dcat:hadRole aarr:memberOf ;
       sdo:agent <https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/fses> 
    ] ;
    sdo:url "https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sandra-Potter"^^xsd:anyURI ;
    sdo:name "Sandra Potter" ;
.

Agent to agent relationships

how do we describe the relationship between agents?

A relationship between agents may be expressed using qualified relations pattern, where dcat:qualifiedRelation indicates a dcat:Relationship.

Note

The DCAT profile includes patterns for qualified relationships between datasets and agents, and between datasets and other resources, but DCAT does not explicitiy state a pattern for qualified relationships between agents and agents. The the agent to agent pattern in this section follows the DCAT approach with some customaisation.

To express a relationship between agents, the dcat:qualifiedRelation property identifies a dcat:Relationship, which is refined with dcat:hadRole and a concept from the Agent to Agent Relationship Roles vocabulary. The object of the statement is expressed as an sdo:agent.

Example: Organisation to Organisation relations

PREFIX aarr: <https://data.idnau.org/pid/vocab/aarr/>
PREFIX dcat: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#>
PREFIX dcterms: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/>
PREFIX prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#>
PREFIX sdo: <https://schema.org/>
PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>

<https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/abs-coatsis>
    a sdo:Organization ;
    dcterms:type <https://data.idnau.org/pid/vocab/org-indigeneity/run-by-indigenous-persons> ;
    sdo:description "The Centre of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Statistics (CoATSIS) has a leadership and coordination role for national statistical activity about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They engage with communities across a range of statistical activities and outputs such as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and social surveys, the five-yearly Census, administrative data, and data integration projects."@en ;
    dcat:qualifiedRelation [
       a dcat:Relationship ;
            dcat:hadRole aarr:partOf ;
            sdo:agent <https://linked.data.gov.au/org/abs>
        ] ;
    sdo:name "Australian Bureau of Statistics Centre of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Statistics" ;
    sdo:url "https://www.abs.gov.au/about/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-engagement"^^xsd:anyURI ;
.

Example: Person to Organisation relations

PREFIX aarr: <https://data.idnau.org/pid/vocab/aarr/>
PREFIX dcat: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#>
PREFIX prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#>
PREFIX sdo: <https://schema.org/>
PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>

<https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8742-7730>
    a sdo:Person ;
    dcterms:type
        sdo:Person ,
        <https://data.idnau.org/pid/vocab/org-indigeneity/non-indigenous> ;
    dcat:qualifiedRelation [
         a dcat:Relationship ;
            dcat:hadRole aarr:affiliateOf ;
            sdo:agent <https://kurrawong.ai>
        ] ;
    sdo:email "nick@kurrawong.ai"^^xsd:anyURI ;
    sdo:name "Nicholas J. Car"@en ;
.

Example: Person to Person relations

PREFIX aarr: <https://data.idnau.org/pid/vocab/aarr/>
PREFIX dcat: <http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#>
PREFIX prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#>
PREFIX sdo: <https://schema.org/>

<https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5640-3202>
    a sdo:Person ;
    dcat:qualifiedRelation [
       a dcat:Relationship ;
          dcat:hadRole aarr:proxyOf ;
          sdo:agent <https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8742-7730>
    ] ;
    sdo:name "Les Kneebone" ;
.

Identifiers

To help identify and disambiguate an agent, indicate an external identifier using sdo:identifier and a code from the Standard Identifiers vocabulary.

PREFIX id: <http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/identifiers/>
PREFIX sdo: <https://schema.org/>
PREFIX xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#>

# Example: Research Organization Registry (ROR)

<https://linked.data.gov.au/org/und>
    a sdo:Organization ;
    sdo:name "University of Notre Dame" ;
    sdo:identifier "https://ror.org/02stey378"^^id:ror ;
.

# Example: Australian Business Number

<https://data.idnau.org/pid/org/28-221-722-606>
    a sdo:Organization ;
    sdo:identifier "28221722606"^^id:ausbn ;
    sdo:name "Yothu Yindi" ;
.

# Example: Australian Company Number (ACN)

<https://ror.org/038sjwq14>
    a sdo:Organization ;
    sdo:identifier "633798857"^^id:auscn ;
    sdo:name "Australian Research Data Commons Limited" ;
.

# Example: Australian Registered Body Number (ARBN) example

<https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q781374>
    a sdo:Organization ;
    sdo:identifier "007498482"^^id:ausrn ;
    sdo:name "Australian Conservation Foundation" ;
.

# Example: ORCID

<https://data.idnau.org/pid/person/6b196829-bdf7-44d0-9372-e81b787e8030>
    a sdo:Person ;
    sdo:name "Barbara Glowczewski" ;
    sdo:identifier "https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9629-2516"^^id:orcid ;
.