Re: Mapping versus re-using

Hi John,

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 01:58:38PM -0400, John Madden wrote:
> I'm looking for some guidance on choice of mechanisms for interlinking concept schemes.
> 
>  In the Primer, following the discussion of mapping (Section 3.1) there is 
>  discussion (Section 3.2) of re-using concepts by asserting
> 
> 	ex1:A-Concept-In-Scheme-1   skos:inScheme  ex2:Scheme-2
> 
> Section 3.2 also discusses owl:imports as a third strategy for interlinking.
> 
> Are there any writings available that elaborate a bit more than the Primer on 
> the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy (mapping vs. re-use vs. 
> importing) and "best practices" for when to prefer one strategy over the 
> others?

I'm not working at the coal face here, so others will have more experience to 
share, but I think I'd say the following.

If you have two concept schemes, and you want to continue to treat them as 
separate concept schemes in all situations, but you want to be able to translate 
queries and/or metadata using concepts from scheme 1 into queries and/or 
metadata using concepts from scheme 2, then I would take the mapping approach.

If you have two concept schemes, and you would like to be able to treat them as 
a single concept scheme in some circumstances; or conversely, if you are 
designing a single concept scheme which you would like to be able to treat as 
multiple separate schemes under some circumstances, then you might consider the 
"re-use" approach, i.e., using skos:inScheme to define multiple scheme 
membership for some concepts. 

Whether or not to use owl:imports will probably depend on how the tools you are 
using process owl:imports statements. If adding an owl:imports statement makes 
your tools do something sensible and useful, then use it. Sorry to be vague, but 
I would approach owl:imports cautiously.

Hth,

Alistair

> 
> Thanks!
> 
> John

-- 
Alistair Miles
Head of Epidemiological Informatics
Centre for Genomics and Global Health <http://cggh.org>
The Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics
Roosevelt Drive
Oxford
OX3 7BN
United Kingdom
Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman
Email: alimanfoo@gmail.com
Tel: +44 (0)1865 287669

Received on Monday, 16 May 2011 15:43:03 UTC