Re: Should we adopt SKOS?

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Dan Brickley <danbri@danbri.org> wrote:

> +Cc: Jamie
>
> On 9 January 2013 16:29, Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:
> > Coming from the bibliographic world, specifically chairing  the Schema
> Bib
> > Extend Group[1] (who are building a consensus around a group of proposals
> > for Schema.org extensions for bibliographic resources, before submitting
> > them to this group), I am identifying situations where being able to
> model
> > things as SKOS[2] Concepts held in ConceptSchemes would make a great
> deal of
> > sense.
> >
> > Working with colleagues we were finding ourselves almost reinventing the
> > SKOS model in [proposed] Schema.org vocabulary.
> >
> > The introduction of External Enumerations[2] provided the ability to
> link to
> > lists of things controlled by external authorities.  An approach used
> widely
> > in the bibliographic and other domains – Library of Congress Subject
> > Headings[4] for example.  Many of these authorities are modelled using
> SKOS
> > (Concepts within ConceptSchemes) which introduces a consistent structured
> > way to describe relationships (broader/narrower), language specific
> > preferred labels, etc.
> >
> > Sub-typing Intangible for Concept and ConceptScheme, it would be
> > comparatively easy to introduce SKOS into Schema.  The benefits I believe
> > being to add even more value to External Enumeration; providing a
> flexible
> > simple-ish yet standard pattern for marking up lists of concepts and
> their
> > interrelationships; provide a very easy way for already published
> > authoritative lists of concepts to adopt Schema.org and provide valuable
> > resources for all to connect with.
> >
> > For instance VIAF[4] the Virtual International Authority File, a well
> used
> > source of URIs and authoritative names for people and organisations
> > (compiled and managed by the bibliographic community but used widely) is
> > already in SKOS.  SKOS is also used in many other domains.
> >
> > I could see this adding value without significant impact on the rest of
> > Schema.
> >
> > What do others think?
>
> I've been thinking in this direction too (and had brief discussion
> with Jamie, cc:'d, w.r.t. Freebase's approach).
>
> SKOS has done well and a great many controlled vocabularies in the
> thesauri, subject classification and code list tradition are expressed
> using it. SKOS handles various cases where 'class/object/property'
> models don't capture things well. I'd like to have a way of reflecting
> SKOS-oriented data into schema.org descriptions without going
> 'multi-namespace'. There are also already various corners of
> schema.org where different loose notions of 'category' are slipping
> in.
>
> My current preference would be to call a new type "Topic" or perhaps
> "Category" rather than the more esoteric / vague "Concept", even while
> borrowing most structure and terminology from SKOS.
>

+1 to a top-level, independent peer to Thing for this.  While Category
might not be the most precise term for these, it has the advantage of being
very clearly distinct from Thing -- and I worry that Topic and Concept
aren't.


> Do you have a strawman list of what you'd hope to include, from a
> bibliographic perspective?
>
> Dan
>
> > ~Richard
> >
> > --
> > Richard Wallis
> > Technology Evangelist
> > OCLC
> >
> >
> >
> > [1] http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/
> > [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
> > [3] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/ExternalEnumerations
> > [4] http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html
> >
>
>