AW: use-instead notes

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. For our application, I see two crucial points:
 
- the note should provide the target concept as a data property "within" the note (to support explicit linking, and to make use of the prefLabels of the target concept, instead of a fixed literal string which may soon be out-of-date)
 
- the note must be attached to the source concept (which is, for the special case or aspect identified in the literal part of the note, the wrong one), in order to guide the user to the right one. The user somehow came across this "wrong" concept and needs the hint there - a property of the target concept doesn't help, because there is a danger that the user may not look at that one at all.
 
I see your point that this is a special case of a scope note. In my understanding, it would have been perfectly legal to use skos:scopeNote with a structured value as shown below. But my feeling was that it could be helpful (for our own applications as well as for other users of the skos representation of the thesaurus) to indicate that this notes do not only have a special structure but also a special meaning, different from other scope notes used in the thesaurus. 
 
The more general sense, there are notes which are semi-structured - which consist of a data property which links to another concept in combination with some textual restrictions or explanations. (I have seen this pattern also in classifications, with "see"/"use instead" as well as with "see also" hints.) Often, because of the lack of tool support, simple textual scope notes are used for this purpose - resulting in target terms which cannot be validated and may not be valid any longer. Do you know if some treatment for such semi-structured notes is an issue for ISO 25954?
 
Kind regards, Joachim
 
________________________________

Von: public-esw-thes-request@w3.org im Auftrag von Leonard Will
Gesendet: Mo 12.01.2009 15:45
An: public-esw-thes@w3.org
Betreff: Re: use-instead notes




On Mon, 12 Jan 2009 at 12:36:09, Neubert Joachim <J.Neubert@zbw.eu>
wrote
>
>In the the course of the conversion of  our economics thesaurus to SKOS,
>I found a construct which seems to require a custom extension: Some
>documentation notes offer "use that instead of this" hints - e.g., a
>note for the descriptor "Restrictive business practices" says "For
>restrictions on market entry USE Market entry".
>
>To preserve the semantic of this note, I think about introducing a new
>type of note:
>
>  stw:useInsteadNote rdfs:subPropertyOf skos:note
>
>which could be used as follows:
>
>  <restrictive business practices> stw:useInsteadNote
>    [ rdf:value "For restrictions on market entry"@en;
>      rdfs:seeAlso <market entry> ] .
>
>By using a custom type of note, it can get special treatment, generation
>of links etc., in the further conversion to XHTML/RDFa.
>
>Do you have some experience with this or a similar pattern? Are there
>any pitfalls I should be aware of?
>
>Kind regards,
>
>Joachim Neubert
>German National Library of Economics (ZBW)
>
This sort of note would normally be included as a scope note, which can
contain notes on other concepts which are included or excluded from the
scope of the concept to which it applies. These notes are not generally
designed to be understood by machines, so the syntax is not fixed. The
example you quote could be shown as

restrictive business practices
SN: For restrictions on market entry USE market entry
RT: market entry

though the RT entry may be redundant. You could add, if desired, the
additional entry as a non-preferred term:

restrictions on market entry
USE: market entry

and the (automatically-created) reciprocal entries:

market entry
UF: restrictions on market entry
RT: restrictive business practices

I don't think it is necessary to introduce another type of relationship;
the ISO 25964 model allows for custom notes, but as this form of
reference to another concept is very common in scope notes that seems
the natural place to keep it.

Leonard Will
--
Willpower Information       (Partners: Dr Leonard D Will, Sheena E Will)
Information Management Consultants              Tel: +44 (0)20 8372 0092
27 Calshot Way, Enfield, Middlesex EN2 7BQ, UK. Fax: +44 (0)870 051 7276
L.Will@Willpowerinfo.co.uk               Sheena.Will@Willpowerinfo.co.uk
---------------- <URL:http://www.willpowerinfo.co.uk/> -----------------