[Sigia-l] SKOS within Topic Maps for IA (was: [Topic Maps] for Information Architects / 1st CfP TMRA 2006 conference)
Alexander Sigel
sigel at netcologne.de
Tue Feb 14 13:11:43 EST 2006
Dear information architects,
sorry for accidentally having forgotten [Topic Maps] in the beginning of
the mail subject of my recent announcement of the TMRA 2006 conference.
This email is to reply to the following postings on this list suggesting
the use of SKOS *** instead *** of Topic Maps
which arose as direct reactions to my TMRA 2006 posting.
7. SKOS (was Re: [Sigia-l] for Information Architects
(andrew at friendlymanual.com)
10. Re: SKOS (was Re: [Sigia-l] for Information Architects
(Alexander Johannesen)
17. Re: SKOS (was Re: [Sigia-l] for Information Architects
(Andrew Boyd)
Comments on (7) by Andrew:
------------------------------
> how many people are still using topic maps,
> and how many people have abandoned them for SKOS (Simple Knowledge
Organisation System)?
Andrew, I have no numbers on this. Maybe in practice some portals are
starting with SKOS and will turn to SKOS within Topic Maps later.
I do not know of topic map-based portals having abandoned topic maps in
favour of SKOS.
But I do know that lots of portals are nowadays topic map-based.
In addition, I want to gently point you to a misconception:
The approaches are not diametral but combine very well.
SKOS is not at all a "replacement" for topic maps, and I kindly ask you
not to imply that topic maps are old-fashioned.
SKOS can be perfectly leveraged within a topic maps-based portal.
SKOS is a RDF vocabulary with which one can model extended thesauri.
That is fine and should be used.
With RDFTM one can map from RDF to the richer Topic Maps model and
therefore even have the best of both worlds.
For such a mapping example see Garshol, L.M. (2005, October 24) (see
reference below).
"This procedure allows using any KOS in a Topic Maps-based portal which
is represented as RDF according to SKOS" (Sigel & Ahmed 2006, see
reference below)
Comments on (10) by Alexander Johannesen:
----------------------------------------------
(the author of TM4JScript and
http://xsiteable.sourceforge.net/xsiteable.html)
> I use both at the same time. :)
I'd be interested in references (pointers, URLs) and experiences.
@Alexander: Would you like to present this work at TMRA 2006?
> SKOS is basically an ontology (a set of words and relationships that
is defined in the specification called
> SKOS) that I can easily reuse in Topic Maps.
yes. SKOS is a special ontology which can be used within Topic Maps,
since Topic Maps can accomodate
arbitrary ontology specifications.
> I reckon SKOS is in fairly low use, given its young age.
So do I think, but it will grow.
> There is no replacement per se;
right.
> The good thing about SKOS is that an ontology is defined and
standardised, but there is an assumed RDF at the bottom of it.
> Luckily this can be replaced with Topic Maps quite easily, and made
even easier these days with the RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability
> Guidelines (http://www.ontopia.net/work/guidelines.html).
Thanks, Alexander for pointing to this one. That's exactly what I had
also wanted to add :-)
Any RDF vocabulary (and therefore SKOS) can be mapped to Topic Maps
(currently the limitations described in the Interop Guidelines apply,
though).
Comments on (17) by Andrew:
--------------------------------
> thank you for the clarification. I now keen to get a project that allows
> me to explore the wonderful world of SKOS -> Topic Maps! :)
Enjoy and tell us!
Now here comes some additional food for thinking:
= = = = =
In a recent article under review
(Sigel, A., Ahmed, K. (2006): Topic-Oriented Portals. In: Tatnall,
Arthur (ed.): Encyclopaedia of Portal Technology and Applications. Idea
Group)
we wrote:
"Topic Maps are semantically interoperable with RDF (Pepper, Vitali,
Garshol et al., 2005, Garshol & Naito, 2004, Garshol, 2003, Ontopia,
2003). Because Topic Maps explicitly disclose additional information
(Garshol, 2006b), a mapping from RDF to Topic Maps is an up-conversion."
"4.3 The potential of using SKOS in a Topic Maps-based portal
An organisation investing in a topic-oriented portal may want to base
their information architecture on a knowledge organization system and
develop published subjects from it, thus defining a shallow ontology. In
addition, the organisation may consider the SKOS (Simple Knowledge
Organisation System) specification as a container for their KOS. "SKOS
is an area of work developing specifications and standards to support
the use of knowledge organisation systems (KOS) such as thesauri,
classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, other types
of controlled vocabulary, and perhaps also terminologies and glossaries,
within the framework of the Semantic Web." Several specifications have
been developed by this group, e.g. the SKOS Core Guide. "SKOS Core
provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of
concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject
heading lists, taxonomies, 'folksonomies', other types of controlled
vocabulary, and also concept schemes embedded in glossaries and
terminologies" (Miles & Brickley, 2005). Conceptually, Topic Maps can
accommodate any such KOS, and technically, SKOS as an RDF application
can be up-converted to Topic Maps. Based on his earlier work (Ontopia,
2003, Garshol, 2003), this mapping has been described by Garshol (2005).
This procedure allows using any KOS in a Topic Maps-based portal which
is represented as RDF according to SKOS"
Garshol, L.M. (2006b). tolog - a topic maps query language. See: Maicher
& Park (2006).
http://www.garshol.priv.no/download/text/tolog.pdf. Slides with title: A
Query Algebra for tolog. Formalizing tolog.
http://www.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/~tmra05/PRES/LMGb.pdf
Garshol, L.M. (2005, October 24). SKOS in Topic Maps. Blog entry.
http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/10.html
Garshol, L.M. (2003). Living with Topic Maps and RDF: Topic Maps, RDF,
DAML, OIL, OWL, TMCL. Proceedings of the XML Europe Conference 2003.
London, England, 5-8 May 2003.
http://www.idealliance.org/papers/dx_xmle03/index/title/da78f2d953553c194e0c0dbed6.html
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tmrdf.html
Garshol, L.M., & Naito, M. (2004, August 31). RDF and Topic Maps
Interoperability in Practice. Paper accompanying the demo presented on
Nov 9th at the 3rd International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2004).
Hiroshima, Japan, 7-11 November 2004.
http://iswc2004.semanticweb.org/demos/19/paper.pdf
Miles, A., & Brickley, A. (2005, November 2). SKOS Core Guide. W3C
Working Draft. http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-swbp-skos-core-guide-20051102/
Ontopia (2003, December 28). The RTM RDF to Topic Maps Mapping:
Definition and Introduction. Ontopia technical report. Version 0.2.
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/rdf2tm.html
Pepper, S., Vitali, F., Garshol, L.M. et al. (2005, March 29). A Survey
of RDF/Topic Maps Interoperability Proposals. W3C Working Draft.
http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-rdftm-survey-20050329
= = = = =
Alexander Sigel, M.A., Researcher in Semantic Knowledge Networking
Univ. of Cologne, Dept. of Information Systems & Information Management
http://www.wim.uni-koeln.de/19.0.html
sigel at wim.uni-koeln.de, +49 221 470-5322
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