sequence/hierarchy codes ... do you export this?

Hi,

A little technical question related to classification type of vocabulary 
and not really very SKOS-orientated. I am wondering of the usefulness of 
the sharing of hierarchy data we hold locally.

Classification vocabulary as a whole usually have a strict order of 
class sequence (broad to narrow) that we manage through combination of 
intellectual and mechanic rules. Technical term for this in 
classification is 'filing order'.
For various reasons, I will not digress into,  in the UDC database we do 
not rely on the notation to sort tables and hierarchies in a desired 
sequence - and we use independent hierarchy codes that are automatically 
generated based on a set of algorithms.
(in case you wonder: we do have "broader" data element for each class 
notation as well, which can be edited/manipulated)

E.g.  for the following sequence of classes

=4    Afro-Asiatic, Nilo-Saharan, Congo-Kordofanian, Khoisan languages
=41    Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic) languages
=411    Semitic languages
=411.1    North Semitic languages
=411.2    South-west Semitic languages

we store the following hierarchy codes

002.001.008.001.003
002.001.008.001.003.013
002.001.008.001.003.013.006
002.001.008.001.003.013.006.002
002.001.008.001.003.013.006.003

(these are generated from the db subset containing 2000 records 
<http://www.udcc.org/udcsummary/php/index.php?lang=1>  the full system 
has 68,000 records, and UDC notation can have up to 11 hierarchy levels.

I don't know whether anyone working with classification-type vocabulary 
has the same approach. But I am wondering, when providing various 
exports for download - would this not be something that may be useful, 
or would you expect that whoever is using the data will simply generate 
their own hierarchy code, from the correct sequence provided

sorry if this is a bit silly :-) I am just wondering about scenarios in 
which data may be used and whether in any such scenario hierarchy codes 
described above may be needed or would save time

cheers

Aida





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Received on Tuesday, 22 December 2009 13:03:51 UTC