Re: [SKOS] The return of ISSUE-44 (was Re: TR : SKOS Reference Editor's Draft 23 December 2007)

>> - SKOS could be used to represent KOSs that are not thesauri

 

>I think this is a very good point that Antoine makes here, and I'd  

>strongly agree. We are providing a representational framework that  

>can be used to represent (among other things) thesauri.

 

Yes as I understand SKOS provides a more general framework covering
multiple types of KOS. For application usage it would be desirable to
include further information - perhaps by use of subtypes of the 'core'
relationships. An interesting point was made by one contributor in a
previous post about LCSH using a different interpretation of BT (the
doorbells/mammals thread); if the semantics of the BT relationship
remain open to informal interpretation then automated applications can
only assume the lowest common denominator - broader means broader but
little else. A difference has been identified between skos:thesaurusBT
and skos:subjectheadingBT (they don't exist but you get the idea), so
why not encode this distinction within SKOS itself and then within the
representation of KOS data? I think SKOS should be 'as simple as
possible but no simpler' but in my view it oversimplifies, leading to
the loss of some important (but currently implicit) information about
relationship semantics when amalgamating multiple KOS types. 

 

Ceri Binding

Hypermedia Research Unit,

Faculty of Advanced Technology,

University of Glamorgan,

Pontypridd, CF37 1DL

Tel: +44 (0)1443 654533

Email: cbinding@glam.ac.uk <mailto:cbinding@glam.ac.uk>