Re: vision for controlled vocabulary use and management

Al (et):

I concur with the vision statement.
Personally I believe that this work should (obviously) leverage the
valuable insights gained through Thesaurus management , and the Metadata
managment knowledge generated by the OASIS ebXMLRegistry (& Repository)
Semantic Content SC and the Business Centric Methodology TC (which
leverages a Semantic Layer that my be populated with  controlled
vocabularies, thesauri, OWL ontologies etc). AND that this SKOS Core work
will be referenced by many OASIS TCs.

carl

<quote who="Miles, AJ (Alistair)">
>
> Hi all,
>
> I thought I'd try to put down in words where I have assumed controlled
> vocabulary development and use is (or ought to be :) going.  Because SKOS
> Core is forward looking, and has been designed with a lot of
> future-proofing
> in mind, I wanted to check that some simple elements of this vision make
> sense to everyone else.
>
> (1) Concept-Oriented Design and Construction
>
> The design and construction of controlled vocabularies, thesauri etc. will
> become *concept-oriented*.  This means that concepts are identified
> explicitly, and the meaning of a concept is understood to be taken from
> the
> combination of its labels, notes etc.
>
> (2) Concept-Oriented Indexing
>
> The use of controlled vocabularies, thesauri etc. for (subject-based)
> indexing will become concept oriented.  This means that the index values
> in
> record metadata will be *concept-identifiers* and not terms.  In turn,
> indexing applications will hide these identifiers from the indexer ... so
> an
> indexer will interact with a set of concepts via their labels and notes,
> as
> part of selecting the appropriate concept, and the insertion of
> concept-identifiers into metadata is performed by the application.
>
> (3) Concept-Oriented Maintenance & Management
>
> Once a concept identifier has been published, it is in the interest of the
> publishing authority to avoid altering the meaning of the concept
> associated
> with that identifier.  If the meaning is significantly altered over time,
> the identifier will be applied inconsistently in indexing metadata, and
> its
> utility will be reduced.  This means that, if an authority wishes to
> significantly refactor/reorganise/redefine some of its concepts, this is
> best done by defining and publishing some new concepts and new concept
> identifiers.  Replacement relationships may be then defined between the
> old
> concepts and the new, which would support perfect interoperability between
> systems employing old and new concept sets, and would also support
> automated
> updating of indexing metadata.
>
> These are the kinds of assumption I've been working on ... so if these
> look
> wrong to you, please tell me.  Also, Stella's last email [1] highlighted
> the
> difference between this vision and current paradigm and practise within
> the
> thesaurus user community, wrt change management.  Ideally, I would like
> SKOS
> Core to be where the thesaurus user community will arrive in perhaps a
> couple of years, so that it fits the requirements.  However, this may be
> at
> least in part unrealistic.  Bridging the space between the current users
> of
> controlled vocabularies and the framework of the semantic web is what I
> see
> as the central goal of the SKOS work ... which may require a little more
> meeting in the middle ... ?
>
> Anyway, food for thought.
>
> Al.
>
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-esw-thes/2004Oct/0048.html
>
> ---
> 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
>
>
>


-- 
Carl Mattocks

co-Chair OASIS (ISO/TS 15000) ebXMLRegistry Semantic Content SC
co-Chair OASIS Business Centric Methodology TC
CEO CHECKMi
v/f (usa) 908 322 8715
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Received on Friday, 8 October 2004 17:25:37 UTC