Re: SKOS comment: Last Call Working Draft

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your detailed and valuable comments. These have been
raised as ISSUE-181, ISSUE-182, ISSUE-183, ISSUE-184, ISSUE-185 and
ISSUE-186. The SWDWG issue tracker is online at:

http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/track/issues

We hope to provide a response by 17 October.

Kind regards,

Alistair Miles
Sean Bechhofer

On 3 Oct 2008, at 19:10, Panzer,Michael wrote:

>
> Dear SKOS working group,
>
> Following are comments on the Last Call Working Draft of the SKOS
> Reference with special emphasis on its ability to model classification
> systems. Although examples are mainly drawn from the Dewey Decimal
> Classification, we believe these issues to be valid for most large- 
> scale
> bibliographic classification systems, as they were echoed by a  
> study of
> using SKOS for a large integrated vocabulary, Chinese Classified
> Thesaurus (CCT). As some problems might have already been stated in  
> the
> past, we apologize in advance for any duplication. More examples  
> can be
> provided if needed.
>
>
> 1. Non-assignable concepts
> --------------------------
>
> Classification systems usually contain objects that are, while not  
> being
> assignable concepts, nonetheless an integral part of the system (not
> just a display/presentation device), e.g., number spans or - in  
> case of
> the DDC - so-called "centered entries":
>
> T2-486-T2-488 Divisions of Sweden
> 333.7-333.9 Natural resources and energy
>
> A centered entry represents a subject covered by a span of numbers.
> Centered entries relate notationally coordinate classes together as a
> single concept. For example, T2-485 represents Sweden; the centered
> entry T2-486-T2-488 represents the geographic divisions of Sweden.
> Centered entries are an important part of the structural hierarchy,
> representing true broader concepts, even though this  
> superordination is
> not indicated by notation. In addition, as they often contain
> instructions applicable to all subordinate classes, centered entries
> cannot be modeled as a skos:Collection, since skos:Collection  
> cannot be
> part of the concept hierarchy (as defined in 9.6.4). A new class or
> expanded skos:Collection class is required to allow concept  
> collections
> like spans or centered entries to be expressed as concepts.
>
> 2. Index terms
> --------------
>
> An important part of many classification systems is an index, in the
> case of the DDC its "Relative Index". Index terms associated with a
> given class generally reflect several of the topics falling within the
> scope of that class. There is no easy way of modeling this  
> relationship
> in SKOS:
>
> Class/Concept:
> 616 Diseases
>
> Index terms:
>    Clinical medicine
>    Diseases--humans--medicine
>    Illness--medicine
>    Internal medicine
>    Physical illness--medicine
>    Sickness--medicine
>
> Currently, a possible workaround is to construct the complete Relative
> Index as a separate skos:ConceptScheme and relate the concepts in  
> these
> two independent schemes by using mapping relations:
>
> skosclass:hasIndexTerm rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:closeMatch .
>
> skosclass:isIndexTermOf rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:closeMatch ;
>   owl:inverseOf skosclass:hasIndexTerm .
>
> <class/616> a skos:Concept ;
>   skosclass:hasIndexTerm <index/Clinical%20medicine> ;
>   skos:inScheme <classification> .
>
> <index/Clinical%20medicine> a skos:Concept ;
>   skosclass:isIndexTermOf <class/616> ;
>   skos:inScheme <index> .
>
> This seems to be a satisfactory best-practice solution in this  
> case, but
> it has broader implications as index terms are just one instance of:
>
> 3. Class-Topic relationships
> ----------------------------
>
> This issue seems to cause some general problems for using SKOS as a
> general tool to model classification systems, since the fundamental
> entity in a classification system is not the concept but the class,  
> or,
> more precisely, the distinction between classes and their subjects.
> There are numerous examples of problems that arise by the  
> difficulty of
> expressing in SKOS the interplay between a class and the subjects that
> form that class on the basis of at least one common characteristic.
>
> The inability to model other than concept-concept relationships with
> SKOS sometimes leads to inconsistencies as subjects/topics are
> frequently in the domain or range of common classification
> relationships.
>
> In the DDC, this can manifest itself in classes being connected by  
> both
> hierarchical and non-hierarchical relationships if modeled with  
> current
> SKOS:
>
> <A> skos:narrower <B> .
> <B> skos:related <A> .
>
> This arises because what is expressed here isn't really a relationship
> between classes, but between topics and classes:
>
> <A> ddc:narrower <B> .
> <Topic_in_B> ddc:related <A> .
>
> This pattern can also lead to circular hierarchical relationships:
>
> <A> ddc:narrower <Topic_in_B> .
> <B> ddc:narrower <Topic_in_A> .
>
> At the moment in SKOS, this has to be coded at class level:
>
> <A> skos:narrower <B> .
> <B> skos:narrower <A> .
>
> which produces inconsistencies. A possible solution would be to
> introduce/define ddc:related (or similar relationships) as a new  
> element
> without extending SKOS semantic relationships, even if this would mean
> lowering the utility of classification systems in SKOS applications.
>
> 4. skos:notation and skos:prefLabel are overlapping
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> There are two issues here: 1, Most notation in classification  
> schemes is
> preferred (i.e., standard) notation. Should both skos:notation and
> skos:prefLabel be used for all these cases?
>
> 2, On some occasions an alternative (i.e., optional) notation is given
> for a concept. For example, inScheme CCT:
>         [Q89] environmental biology
>             Preferred class: X17
>
> Regardless whether it is preferred or alternative, the notation always
> represents a unique concept and therefore has semantic relationships.
> Hence, an alternative notation is not a non-preferred thesaurus label,
> which has only lexical relationships.
>
> 5. Order in Classification Systems
> ----------------------------------
>
> Order in a classification is important, indeed critical. Order is
> evident in the juxtaposition of classes, the sequence of main classes,
> and the sequence of co-ordinates in a class. Broader and narrower
> relationships alone cannot represent order. So, maybe parallel  
> encoding
> is necessary to make sure that the system a classification scheme  
> tries
> to present is reflected when using SKOS.
>
> To some degree, when order is connected to hierarchy, this can be
> reflected by extensions to SKOS. The DDC for example has two parallel
> hierarchies, one expressed by length of notation, the other by  
> structure
> (notes, etc.). This is handled at the moment by extending  
> skos:narrower.
>
> skosclass:narrowerStructural rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:narrower .
>
> skosclass:broaderStructural rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:broader ;
>   owl:inverseOf skosclass:narrowerStructural .
>
> 6. Mappings
> -----------
>
> The problem of restricting SKOS to one-to-one mappings has already  
> been
> raised as ISSUE-131. We share the concerns expressed there.
>
> We also see potential problems in deriving the mapping relations
> skos:broadMatch and skos:narrowMatch from skos:broader and
> skos:narrower. In ISO standard and current practices many multilingual
> thesauri did not use broader or narrower to indicate the mapping
> relations. SKOS should revisit those standards and follow the current
> standards' development to make sure SKOS is consistent in representing
> the indicators used by standards (and the thesauri following those
> standards) for so many years.
>
> In addition, when mapping systems that are structurally heterogeneous
> (e.g., classification systems and thesauri), the links established
> through mappings have no hierarchical implications at all.
>
> Currently, skos:broader is used both for the hierarchical relationship
> between classes as well as between concepts. Mapping relations that  
> are
> subproperties of skos:broader/skos:narrower are not able to  
> sufficiently
> support interoperability between structurally heterogeneous systems.
>
> In addition, many different indicators of degree of mapping have been
> used in integrated vocabularies, e.g., major mapping, minor mapping,
> alternative mapping, and overlapping.  These may make the mapping
> properties even more complicated. The solution here might again be to
> extend mapping properties.
>
> Best wishes,
> Michael
>
> --------------
> Michael Panzer
> Global Product Manager, Taxonomy Services
> OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
>
>

--
Sean Bechhofer
School of Computer Science
University of Manchester
sean.bechhofer@manchester.ac.uk
http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/people/bechhofer

Received on Wednesday, 8 October 2008 10:11:50 UTC