HealthDCAT-AP Release 7 – Changelog

This page documents all changes introduced in Release 7 of HealthDCAT-AP, including new model elements, controlled vocabulary updates, infrastructure migrations, a new latest release URL, a new complete dataset example, and resolved community issues.

1. New Model Elements

1.1 Structured Data New

A new mandatory property healthdcatap:hasStructuredData has been introduced on the Dataset class to indicate whether the dataset contains structured data for which a machine-readable description of the data variables can be provided.

1.2 Variables — Migration from Sample to Dataset Updated

• Variables have been moved from the Sample class to the Dataset class.
• They are now represented via the property healthdcatap:hasVariables, which links a dataset to a csvw:TableGroup, itself composed of csvw:Table and csvw:Column elements.
• CSVW remains the description framework for representing variables.
• When a dataset contains structured data (healthdcatap:hasStructuredData = true), the corresponding variables must be described using healthdcatap:hasVariables.

2. Controlled Vocabulary Updates

2.1 Infrastructure Migration Updated

All DG SANTE's created controlled vocabulary base URLs have been migrated from a temporary environment to HealthData@EU Acceptance environment.

2.2 New Controlled Vocabularies New

Two new controlled vocabularies have been introduced for the fields conforms to (dct:conformsTo) and coding system (healthdcatap:hasCodingSystem).

3. Latest Release URL New

A latest URL has been introduced that automatically redirects users to the most recent published release of HealthDCAT-AP:

https://healthdataeu.pages.code.europa.eu/healthdcat-ap/releases/latest/

Bookmarking or linking to this URL ensures users always land on the current release without needing to update their links between versions.

4. New Dataset Example New

A Dataset example has been introduced to help implementers understand how HealthDCAT-AP properties are used together in practice.
It covers a complete Dataset description including Distribution, Variables, and key HealthDCAT-AP specific properties.

The example is available in the specification under Section 16 — HealthDCAT-AP Examples, and can be accessed directly here:
example-healthdcat-dataset.ttl

The example is illustrative and non-normative.

5. Resolved Community Issues

The following issues reported on the Code Europa issue tracker have been resolved in this release.