RE: SKOS Mapping Vocabulary Specification query

George,

You may like to consider the mapping types in the forthcoming BS 8723
Part 4. This standard will define mappings as "statements of the
relationships between the terms, notations or concepts of one vocabulary
and those of another". It will describe the following types of mapping:
- equivalence (comparable to the equivalence relationship in a
multilingual thesaurus)
- hierarchical (comparable to the BT/NT relationship in a thesaurus)
- associative (comparable to the RT/RT relationship in a thesaurus)
The main emphasis in the standard is on equivalence mappings.

It will describe degrees of equivalence, acknowledging that some
proposed equivalents are partial or inexact (but may nonetheless be
acceptable in appropriate contexts) without establishing distinct
mapping types for the more and less exactly equivalent respectively. It
will also suggest a method of handling one-to-many equivalences, i.e.
where a concept in one of the vocabularies is represented by a
combination of concepts in the other vocabulary, and for this situation
two different combination types are described.

Well, this may not be exactly what you are asking about, but we hope it
will be useful for a lot of applications.  Let me know if you'd like to
see a draft.

All the best
Stella

*****************************************************
Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
SDClarke@LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
*****************************************************



-----Original Message-----
From: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-esw-thes-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of George Macgregor
Sent: 15 August 2006 15:59
To: public-esw-thes@w3.org
Subject: SKOS Mapping Vocabulary Specification query



Dear all,

At the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR) we are in the process
of researching and developing a M2M mapping-based terminology server.
This work is being undertaken via the third phase of the High-Level
Thesaurus project (HILT) [1].  HILT III will offer web services access
(via SOAP) and plans to use SKOS Core for wrapping terminology sets for
sending. In particular, this would entail the use of the SKOS Mapping
Vocabulary Specification.  

Previous phases of HILT indicated that a degree of specificity was
required when characterising mapping match types.  This was necessary to
facilitate improved results ranking and to provide users with adequate
relevance feedback.  Vocabulary switching work conducted by Chaplan [2]
identified 19 separate mapping match types and noted the difficulty in
using conceptual approaches to denote equivalence.  More recently, Liang
et al. [3] have found problems in implementing the SKOS matches for
mapping between disparate thesauri.  This was attributed to difficulties
pertaining to the match type definitions and their ability to
accommodate more complex matches.

Clearly there is a need to offer a simple conceptual approach to
specifying equivalence - and this is what the SKOS MVS does; however, we
would be keen to know the status of the SKOS MVS, whether any extensions
are being
proposed and, if so, their nature.   Since there has not been
significant
public comment on the SKOS mapping types, we would also be keen to hear
comments and whether people consider the MVS to be sufficiently
specific. Our current thoughts are that we might extend the SKOS MVS to
incorporate extra match types, but we would want to do this
collaboratively and in a way that can accommodate any foreseeable (or
potential) additions to the SKOS MVS.

Thanks in advance.

George   

References:

[1] HILT: http://hilt.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/  

[2] Margaret A. Chaplan, Mapping Laborline Thesaurus terms to Library of
Congress Subject Headings: implications for vocabulary switching,
Library Quarterly 56(1) (1995) 39-61.

[3] A. Liang, M. Sini, Chang Chun, Li Sijing, Lu Wenlin, He Chunpei and
J. Keizer, The mapping schema from Chinese Agricultural Thesaurus to
AGROVOC, 6th AOS Workshop - Thesaurus enrichment and facilitating
interoperability through mapping (2005).  Available:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/008/af241e/af241e00.pdf  

----------------------------------------------
George Macgregor,
Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR),
Department of Computer & Information Sciences,
University of Strathclyde, Livingstone Tower,
26 Richmond Street, Glasgow, UK, G1 1XH
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4752
fax: +44 (0)141 548 4523
web: http://cdlr.strath.ac.uk/
--------------------------------------------

Received on Tuesday, 15 August 2006 20:34:43 UTC