Re: SKOS tools?

John
The MMI ontology registry is one of the first things I tried. I used 
voc2rdf at http://mmisw.org/ontmd/voc2rdf/ to upload a csv version of 
one of our CGI vocabularies 
(urn:cgi:classifierScheme:CGI:SimpleLithology:200811) to the repository 
(current test version is at http://mmisw.org/or/ontologies/1361). This 
produces an owl version with each column in the source csv becoming an 
owl:datatype property. Works great.  I started down the road of using an 
xslt to convert this to SKOS, but got side tracked by the various 
approaches to encoding vocabs in SKOS that I found -- Protege, vs. 
ThManager (University of Zaragoza) vs. Simon's encoding of the GeoSciML 
vocabs. 

I couldn't upload my SKOS vocabulary into ThManager (not sure why...?), 
but I exported one of the pre-packed vocabs it comes with to look at the 
encoding. The vocab is encoded as a collection of rdf:Descriptions that 
contains skos elements, but not as skos concepts.

I didn't see a path using the MMI tools to convert my uploaded vocab to 
SKOS.

steve

John Graybeal wrote:
> Simon,
>
> For Marine Metadata Interoperability project, we found a similar need. 
> Our relatively narrow solutions are just in alpha release; development 
> is ongoing.  We are not proposing these as solutions for the entire 
> semantic web community, as they are scaled just to the environmental 
> science community (figure order of 1000 vocabularies for now, mostly 
> small); but some may find the strategy or code useful.
>
> For the basic use case of transforming a simple vocabulary into SKOS 
> and working with it, we created voc2rdf [1].  We have just rolled out 
> a version that supports round trip editing with simple tables (if the 
> starting point is voc2rdf).
>
> For mapping of ontology concepts, including SKOS, we have developed 
> the VINE mapping tool [2]. It is currently in a standalone 
> application, but is being rewritten to be a web service.  It provides 
> an efficient environment specifically for connecting ontological 
> concepts. (We haven't compared its use to similar functionality in 
> NeOn and Protege plugins, nor to anything available via TopBraid.)
>
> I'm sorry, these aren't fully documented and ready for exhaustive 
> public test/evaluation yet, but they give an idea of our direction.  
> For the scale you indicated for Steve (25 vocabularies), this may be 
> sufficient. My experience so far is that communities that want more 
> may be willing to migrate to more advanced tools.
>
> Responding to the main thrust of your post, I have been disappointed 
> also with the state of semantic tools.  I am convinced this (OWL, RDF, 
> SKOS) is the best approach for consolidating scientific semantics in 
> the short (5 years) term, but given the amount of time these standards 
> have been evolving and their level of use, I would have expected many 
> more user-friendly tools.  The existing tools are pretty expert-focused.
>
> Maybe this is due to the semantic community focusing more on the 
> advanced conceptual capabilities in the semantic web. Or maybe it's as 
> one semantic web person said recently: "Do you really want to give the 
> average user the ability to produce OWL?"  I thought so, but maybe I'm 
> being naive.
>
> John
>
>
> [1] http://marinemetadata.org/voc2rdf
> [2] http://marinemetadata.org/vine
>
>
> On Jun 17, 2009, at 6:53 PM, <Simon.Cox@csiro.au> <Simon.Cox@csiro.au> 
> wrote:
>
>> Dear SKOS list -
>>
>> The GeoSciML project has been evaluating SKOS to implement its 
>> 'controlled concpet' model (see 
>> http://www.geosciml.org/geosciml/2.0/doc/GeoSciML/Vocabulary/package-summary.html for 
>> the UML representation, and you'll see how SKOS is a close match!).
>> My colleague Steve Richard is the lead editor, on behalf of a 
>> consortium including many of the world's leading geological surveys*, 
>> for around 25 vocabularies related to geology.
>> This is a significant effort in the natural sciences.
>>
>> Being a happy old XML hacker I can tolerate RDF/XML and a text editor 
>> for prototyping.
>> But this obviously ain't acceptable for most users, doesn't scale to 
>> production work, and fails to provide the consistency checking and 
>> visualization that a proper editor would.
>>
>> We are mighty frustrated (and getting worse!) at the state of tool 
>> support.
>> In particular, Protégé, even with the SKOS plugin, appears to be 
>> fatally flawed.
>> I've used it from time to time for _viewing_ a concept scheme, but 
>> have never been able to successfully round trip through 
>> export/import, so it doesn't work as an editor.
>> Steve is now finding further flaws - see below - e.g. labels 
>> implemented as objectProperty, no literal support or language 
>> attributes.
>>
>> This is all very disappointing.
>> What tools are people people using successfully for development and 
>> management of SKOS instances?
>>
>> Simon Cox
>>
>> (*) See http://onegeology.org/technical_progress/geosciml.html and 
>> http://onegeology.org/participants/graphical_map.html
>>
>> ______
>> Simon.Cox@csiro.au  CSIRO Exploration & Mining
>> 26 Dick Perry Avenue, Kensington WA 6151
>> PO Box 1130, Bentley WA 6102  AUSTRALIA
>> T: +61 (0)8 6436 8639  Cell: +61 (0) 403 302 672
>> Polycom PVX: 130.116.146.28
>> <http://www.csiro.au>
>>
>> ABN: 41 687 119 230
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stephen richard [mailto:steve.richard@azgs.az.gov]
>> Sent: Thursday, 18 June 2009 9:31 AM
>> To: Cox, Simon (E&M, Kensington)
>> Subject: Re: [Auscope-geosciml] Simple lithology vocabulary in MMI 
>> repository
>>
>> Right now I'm mostly frustrated-
>> the new version of Protege (v4, released today) doesn't preserve 
>> language attributes on prefLabel elements, and the SKOS tool models 
>> prefLabel as an ObjectProperty, so you can't populate it with a 
>> literal, and it doesn't appear to be consistent with the current SKOS 
>> spec.
>> What I started out to do was clean up the hierarchy in 
>> standardLithology, which is a mess. The owl/SKOS tools looked like a 
>> possible way to do it. Instead I've spun my wheels for 3 days. The 
>> idea is simply to be able to round trip between GeologicVocabulary 
>> and some brand of SKOS, for which there is a functional tool, build 
>> and fix hierarchies in SKOS, and convert back to GeologicVocabulary 
>> to update in the BRGM repository. Meanwhile there are the 
>> possibilities of vocabulary services that could assist with document 
>> validation and better yet query resolution with hierarchical 
>> properties...
>>
>> What's AuScope using for SKOS tools?
>
>
> John
>
> --------------
> John Graybeal   <mailto:graybeal@mbari.org>  -- 831-775-1956
> Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
> Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org
>
>

-- 
Stephen M. Richard
Section Chief, Geoinformatics
Arizona Geological Survey
416 W. Congress St., #100
Tucson, Arizona, 85701 USA

Phone: 
Office: (520) 209-4127
Reception: (520) 770-3500 
FAX: (520) 770-3505

email: steve.richard@azgs.az.gov

Received on Monday, 22 June 2009 08:57:10 UTC