RE: URIs for Concepts: Best Practices

Hi Kal,

Thanks alot for this.  

I just had a read of the OASIS PS report [1].  Some initial impressions...

I can see how the PSI/PSID approach would work well within a framework such
as XTM that allows you to say whether you are using the URI to refer to the
thing itself or the thing that describes the thing (sorry I just had to put
it like that, I thought it sounded so funny).  

But RDF goes wrong if you use the same URI to refer to two different things.
So I'm not sure adopting the PSI/PSID convention for SKOS concept schemes
would be a good idea.  

[As an aside, there's no reason why one couldn't define an
InverseFunctionalProperty called e.g. subjectIndicator.  Then the value of
this property could be used to uniquely reference the concept itself, i.e.
one could refer to 'the thing with subjectIndicator X', which achieves the
basic aims of the PSI/PSID approach I think.]  

Incidentally [RDF folks?], I always thought that was what the
rdfs:isDefinedBy property was for - to link some resource to a resolveable
resource that defines it.  

Anyways, Kal, I would like to develop this further with you.  Some clearly
defined best practices here would do the world of good I think.  Look
forward to more thoughts on this.

Yours,

Al.

[1] http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/3050/
[2] http://www.rddl.org/    

---
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Building R1 Room 1.60
Fermi Avenue
Chilton
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kal Ahmed [mailto:kal@techquila.com]
> Sent: 19 April 2004 19:30
> To: Miles, AJ (Alistair)
> Cc: 'public-esw-thes@w3.org'; 'public-esw@w3.org'
> Subject: Re: URIs for Concepts: Best Practices
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Al,
> 
> I like the approach that is outlined by the OASIS Published 
> Subjects TC
> [1]. Although this document is a draft and omits some pieces that I
> would like to see, I feel that the general approach is a good one. To
> summarise, an HTTP identifier, when used to identify a 
> concept *should*
> resolve to a human-readable resource that describes the 
> concept. Despite
> coming from the topic maps community, I feel that this approach is
> applicable to the creation of any identifier scheme that uses HTTP for
> namespacing.
> 
> The things that I would like to see the TC consider is recommendations
> for either embedding, linking to (e.g. using RDDL) or providing as
> parallel resource (via content negotiation), other machine-readable
> descriptions of the concept and related resource - so an RDF resource
> would be one example, the same information translated into 
> XTM might be
> another and so on.
> 
> It would be good to get the Published Subjects work kick started again
> (the committee went quiet a long time ago) - perhaps we could work on
> putting together a technical report to pass either to the OASIS TC or
> just to publish as part of the SWAD work ?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Kal
> 
> [1]
> http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/3050/pubsubj
> -pt1-1.02-cs.pdf
> 
> On Mon, 2004-04-19 at 18:48, Miles, AJ (Alistair) wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I wanted to consult you all on this matter.  I have 
> agreement from the EEA
> > to publish the GEMET environmental thesaurus in the 
> SKOS/RDF format.  The
> > next step is to work out with them the URIs they wish to 
> assign to their
> > thesaurus and concepts.  I'm not sure what to recommend to 
> them on this
> > matter.  
> > 
> > I thought to use an http:// based URI base (e.g.
> > http://www.eionet.eu.int/GEMET) and then add the id number 
> of each concept
> > (e.g. http://www.eionet.eu.int/GEMET#204).   
> > 
> > A first question is, is it OK to use http: URIs for 
> concepts?  Sorry to drag
> > this old chestnut up again, but I need some clear answer on 
> best practices
> > for this.  Are we not at all concerned that the same URI 
> may identify both a
> > thesaurus concept and a resolveable network resource (i.e. the file
> > containing the RDF data)?
> > 
> > What do you think of info: based URIs for concepts?
> > 
> > Hope to hear from you on this,
> > 
> > Al.
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >   
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > ---
> > Alistair Miles
> > Research Associate
> > CCLRC - Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
> > Building R1 Room 1.60
> > Fermi Avenue
> > Chilton
> > Didcot
> > Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
> > United Kingdom
> > Email:        a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
> > Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440
> > 
> -- 
> Kal Ahmed <kal@techquila.com>
> techquila
>

Received on Monday, 19 April 2004 16:06:39 UTC