RE: SKOS Mapping Vocabulary Specification query

Hi Stella, Gabriel

Thanks for your emails - much appreciated.

> Well, this may not be exactly what you are asking about, but we hope it
> will be useful for a lot of applications.  Let me know if you'd like to
> see a draft.

This sounds very useful indeed and it will definitely inform our approach.
Thanks!  We will keep everyone posted on developments! 

The big question for HILT relates to the type of approach.  Recent
approaches adopt a conceptual appraisal of matching, and this is certainly
consistent with how SKOS functions and current thinking generally (such as
the recent Renardus project).  Yet, a large proportion of mapping work in
the past considered this inadequate and adopted an approach of
distinguishing matches at a finer level of detail (e.g. singular/plural
matches, spelling variations, etc., in addition to concept matches and exact
matches).  Similarly, previous work in HILT (much of it anecdotal,
admittedly) appeared to infer that users required such detail to understand
why they had received particular mappings and to enable them to formulate
similar queries in the future.  It was also necessary to allow users to
disaggregate huge result sets which might normally (under SKOS for example)
be conceptually equivalent but which in reality subsumed various types of
'exact match'.  For example, to-the-letter exact matches or matches with
spelling variations or intervening characters, and so forth. 

Clearly this area lacks sufficient user research as there are numerous
assumptions in the literature as to what users might find useful! :-)
Perhaps this is something we can investigate this during the project
lifetime...

Thanks to all.

George
----------------------------------------------
George Macgregor,
Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR),
Department of Computer & Information Sciences,
University of Strathclyde, Livingstone Tower,
26 Richmond Street, Glasgow, UK, G1 1XH
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4752
fax: +44 (0)141 548 4523
web: http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
--------------------------------------------

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stella Dextre Clarke [mailto:sdclarke@lukehouse.demon.co.uk]
> Sent: 15 August 2006 20:49
> To: 'George Macgregor'
> Cc: public-esw-thes@w3.org
> Subject: RE: SKOS Mapping Vocabulary Specification query
> 
> George,
> 
> You may like to consider the mapping types in the forthcoming BS 8723
> Part 4. This standard will define mappings as "statements of the
> relationships between the terms, notations or concepts of one vocabulary
> and those of another". It will describe the following types of mapping:
> - equivalence (comparable to the equivalence relationship in a
> multilingual thesaurus)
> - hierarchical (comparable to the BT/NT relationship in a thesaurus)
> - associative (comparable to the RT/RT relationship in a thesaurus)
> The main emphasis in the standard is on equivalence mappings.
> 
> It will describe degrees of equivalence, acknowledging that some
> proposed equivalents are partial or inexact (but may nonetheless be
> acceptable in appropriate contexts) without establishing distinct
> mapping types for the more and less exactly equivalent respectively. It
> will also suggest a method of handling one-to-many equivalences, i.e.
> where a concept in one of the vocabularies is represented by a
> combination of concepts in the other vocabulary, and for this situation
> two different combination types are described.
> 
> Well, this may not be exactly what you are asking about, but we hope it
> will be useful for a lot of applications.  Let me know if you'd like to
> see a draft.
> 
> All the best
> Stella
> 
> *****************************************************
> Stella Dextre Clarke
> Information Consultant
> Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
> Tel: 01235-833-298
> Fax: 01235-863-298
> SDClarke@LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
> *****************************************************
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
> [mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of George Macgregor
> Sent: 15 August 2006 15:59
> To: public-esw-thes@w3.org
> Subject: SKOS Mapping Vocabulary Specification query
> 
> 
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> At the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) we are in the process
> of researching and developing a M2M mapping-based terminology server.
> This work is being undertaken via the third phase of the High-Level
> Thesaurus project (HILT) [1].  HILT III will offer web services access
> (via SOAP) and plans to use SKOS Core for wrapping terminology sets for
> sending. In particular, this would entail the use of the SKOS Mapping
> Vocabulary Specification.
> 
> Previous phases of HILT indicated that a degree of specificity was
> required when characterising mapping match types.  This was necessary to
> facilitate improved results ranking and to provide users with adequate
> relevance feedback.  Vocabulary switching work conducted by Chaplan [2]
> identified 19 separate mapping match types and noted the difficulty in
> using conceptual approaches to denote equivalence.  More recently, Liang
> et al. [3] have found problems in implementing the SKOS matches for
> mapping between disparate thesauri.  This was attributed to difficulties
> pertaining to the match type definitions and their ability to
> accommodate more complex matches.
> 
> Clearly there is a need to offer a simple conceptual approach to
> specifying equivalence - and this is what the SKOS MVS does; however, we
> would be keen to know the status of the SKOS MVS, whether any extensions
> are being
> proposed and, if so, their nature.   Since there has not been
> significant
> public comment on the SKOS mapping types, we would also be keen to hear
> comments and whether people consider the MVS to be sufficiently
> specific. Our current thoughts are that we might extend the SKOS MVS to
> incorporate extra match types, but we would want to do this
> collaboratively and in a way that can accommodate any foreseeable (or
> potential) additions to the SKOS MVS.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> George
> 
> References:
> 
> [1] HILT: http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
> 
> [2] Margaret A. Chaplan, Mapping Laborline Thesaurus terms to Library of
> Congress Subject Headings: implications for vocabulary switching,
> Library Quarterly 56(1) (1995) 39-61.
> 
> [3] A. Liang, M. Sini, Chang Chun, Li Sijing, Lu Wenlin, He Chunpei and
> J. Keizer, The mapping schema from Chinese Agricultural Thesaurus to
> AGROVOC, 6th AOS Workshop - Thesaurus enrichment and facilitating
> interoperability through mapping (2005).  Available:
> ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/af241e/af241e00.pdf
> 
> ----------------------------------------------
> George Macgregor,
> Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR),
> Department of Computer & Information Sciences,
> University of Strathclyde, Livingstone Tower,
> 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow, UK, G1 1XH
> tel: +44 (0)141 548 4752
> fax: +44 (0)141 548 4523
> web: http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
> --------------------------------------------
> 
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 16 August 2006 11:52:21 UTC