RE: Low level API

> From: Leonard Will [mailto:L.Will@willpowerinfo.co.uk] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 11, 2004 11:03 AM
> Subject: Re: Low level API
> 
> In message <6.0.0.22.2.20040511155617.01c6c768@pop.skynet.be> 
> on Tue, 11 May 2004, Ron Davies <ron@rondavies.be> wrote
> >The SKOS API appears to me to be pitched at a very low level. What I 
> >mean is that the client has to do a great deal of work, and send out 
> >many atomic requests to be able to do certain kinds of 
> required tasks, 
> >e.g. build a useful hierarchical display format to allow an 
> end user to 
> >browse a thesaurus. Hierarchical displays are used in a wide 
> number of 
> >thesauri of different styles.
> 
> I agree with Ron, though I would be interested to know the 
> views of the folk closer to the mechanics of how this would 
> work. Perhaps there is a difference depending on whether you 
> are retrieving a display for a human to look at or specific 
> terms for a machine to use.
> 
> It would certainly seem more efficient for a server to return 
> a complete hierarchy in response to a single request; most 
> standard thesaurus management software can display such 
> hierarchies, constructing them when needed by following the 
> chain of BT/NT links.

The SKOS API suffers from the same problem that previous API's
like ASDL suffer from.  When dealing with Web services you 
need to be careful about your interface.  It's not efficient
for a server to return a complete hierarcy.  This could amount
to a lot of data being returned to the client.  Just like its
not a good idea to have a "return the top terms of the thesaurus"
request, which could wind up sending you the whole thesaurus.  In
either case, before you could build the XML for the SOAP response
your underlying TCP/IP connection would most likely timeout.

From what I can see the SKOS API will not scale.  There was a good
recently published paper on this subject in Cataloging & Classification
Quaterly, volumne 37, Issue 3/4.  Matter of fact this whole issue is
a good read, due to the wealth of thesaurus topics:

Distributed Thesaurus Web Services 
Eric H. Johnson 
http://www.haworthpress.com/store/ArticleAbstract.asp?ID=34895 
HTML-based information services provide access to online information sources
but do not make them useful for much more than viewing in a Web browser.
There is also no cohesive cataloging or subject access scheme for the
Internet. XML and Web services provide the framework for enhancing the
information content of all types of data delivered over the Internet and for
enhancing the functionality of specialized yet interoperable networked
information retrieval applications. The Thesauro-Web, a proposed network of
thesaurus access and navigation services, could provide enhanced subject
access for the World Wide Web and enhance the functionality of information
retrieval applications. The idea behind the Thesauro-Web is described here
in detail, with examples of applicable XMLprotocols and descriptions of
possible uses. 

Another good article I read recently was in JoDI volume 4, issue 4 -- New
Applications of KOS http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v04/i04/Binding/

C. Binding, D. Tudhope: KOS at your Service: Programmatic Access to
Knowledge Organisation Systems
http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk/Articles/v04/i04/Soergel/

An interesting API approach to thesauri can been seen in Microsoft's
Research services available in Office 2003, see: 
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/research/default.aspx

Here the API is limited to a basic query but the message returned could be
an XHTML document which opens up the possibility to follow BT/NT/RT
relationship in your thesaurus, but this is outside the scope of the
Research services API.  Wouldn't it be great to have your favorite thesaurus
available to put quality metadata into your research paper?  I realize that
many are anti-Microsoft but the Research services API could be lifted and
put into OpenOffice and/or other products, after all a Web service API is
just that an API regardless of who created it.  The interesting aspect of
this API is that it moves quality metadata creation down to the author.
Wouldn't it also be great to have your favorite SKOS encoded vocabulary
appear in the Research task pane?  The Research services API provides a
working vechicle for how the Semantic Web could actually be useful.


Andy.

Andrew Houghton, OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
http://www.oclc.org/about/
http://www.oclc.org/research/staff/houghton.htm

Received on Tuesday, 11 May 2004 12:14:54 UTC