RE: Global concept identification and reference

Hi Ron,

Taking the last bit first:

>In an SKOS environment, would they do the same whether they are using >an
'official' URI or the indirect method of reference?

The issue you raise I think is completely orthogonal to the mechanism of
indentification being used (i.e. the question remains the same irrespective
of whether directly assigned URIs or PSIs or some other indirect reference
mechanism has been used).

On the question of (a) (b) or (c) I agree with Richard, go for (c).

What the SKOS Mapping vocabulary [1] in it's current form supports is the
ability to express mappings between the original source concepts, and newly
described concepts based on modifications of the originals.  The currently
supported mapping types are: exact, inexact [major, minor], partial [broad,
narrow].

SKOS Mapping hasn't had anywhere near the same amount of attention or
development and testing that SKOS Core has (everything is 'unstable'), in
fact it's in a rather scruffy state and is missing some bits.  I think it
needs a major review, in addition to tidying up.  I hope we can take a
second look at it once the major features of SKOS Core are established.

Al.

[1] http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/mapping/spec/

--- 
Alistair Miles 
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-----Original Message-----
From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Ron Davies
Sent: 11 November 2004 13:16
To: public-esw-thes@w3.org
Subject: RE: Global concept identification and reference


I have a question related to the points raised by Andrew Houghton and Aida
Slavic. In fact this is (I think) an extension of the question Aida asked. 

Organizations adopting a widely-used thesaurus, like the OECD Macrothesarus,
nearly always make some changes to it so that it meets local needs. They
have bought the thesaurus or obtained it legally, and as long as the changes
are not massive, copyright has never to my knowledge  been an issue in this
regard: they are not re-publishing the thesaurus, just using it in their
application. They state publicly that they use the original thesaurus (say
the Macrothesaurus), though they will likely provide a human-readable note
to a user saying what has been changed for the local application. 

If now, however, in a semantic web environment, they need to expose their
concepts with an identifier, what identifier do they use for the new or
modified concepts they have introduced, and for the old ones that they have
taken over? 

a)  Should they use an identifier that identifies the original thesaurus as
the source for _all_ concepts, even though strictly speaking this isn't
true, and an application relying on the fact that they do may be in for some
surprises? 
b) Do they create a new identifier for their "version" of the thesaurus and
use this even for concepts which are the same in the local version as they
are in the standard version? 
c) Do they use an identifier to the original thesaurus for the terms that
have not changed and use an identifier for their local version for the terms
that have been modified or added? If so, how does an application discover
what the local modifications are?



Thanks,

Ron
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Ron Davies
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Received on Thursday, 11 November 2004 15:48:08 UTC