DocRegExt Proposed Recommendation: Request for Comments

DocRegExt is a VOResource extension for registering documents useful for teaching and learning the Virtual Observatory. It re-uses common VODataService (CatalogResource) metadata and adds the concept of an edition; for the VO this is somewhat new because we care about national languages and linking source code.

Latest version of DocRegExt can be found at:

• http://ivoa.net/documents/DocRegExt/

Minor changes in response to RFC comments will be reflected in the build at https://docs.g-vo.org/DocRegExt.pdf; reviewers may want to look at this copy.

Reference Interoperable Implementations

There are existing DocRegExt records from multiple authorities. Try

select ivoid from rr.resource
where res_type='doc:document'

on a RegTAP service (this gives 45 records at this time). See, for instance, https://dc.g-vo.org/I/ivo%3A//edu.euro-vo.org/tutorials/08_m1_distance as an example for a multi-language document, or https://dc.g-vo.org/I/ivo%3A//org.gavo.dc/tutreg/gavo_pyvocourse/rec for a record with links to a source control system.

On the consumer side, there is the register of VO Text Treasures https://dc.g-vo.org/VOTT.

See also http://svn.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/svn/gavo/hdinputs/vott/res/to-dalia-if.py (make sure your browser does not change that to https or you will be asked for credentials); this is a pyVO script that turns DocRegExt metadata as ingested into the Registry into the schema of the cross-discipline search engine at https://dalia.education. This is in active use for feeding them our material.

Implementations Validators

There is a schema file; use any schema validator on instance documents. There is no further, “semantic” validation so far. I would in particularly like to flag everything that has only one sentence in its description as in need of more love, but as the details of such an endeavour are tricky, I doubt that it will ever happen.

Comments from the IVOA Community during RFC/TCG review period: Nov 15,2025 – Jan 15, 2026

The comments from the TCG members during the RFC/TCG review should be included in the next section.

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Comments from TCG member during the RFC/TCG Review Period: Nov 15. 2025 – Jan 15, 2026

WG chairs or vice chairs must read the Document, provide comments if any (including on topics not directly linked to the Group matters) or indicate that they have no comment.

IG chairs or vice chairs are also encouraged to do the same, althought their inputs are not compulsory.

TCG Chair & Vice Chair

Applications Working Group

Data Access Layer Working Group

Data Model Working Group

Distributed Services & Protocols Working Group

Registry Working Group

Semantics Working Group

Data Curation & Preservation Interest Group

Education Interest Group

High Energy Interest Group

Knowledge Discovery Interest Group

Operations Interest Group

Radio Astronomy Interest Group

Solar System Interest Group

Time Domain Interest Group

Standards and Processes Committee

TCG Vote : Jan 1, 2026 – Jan 15, 2026

If you have minor comments (typos) on the last version of the document please indicate it in the Comments column of the table and post them in the TCG comments section above with the date.