RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data section of Linked Data Cookbook

Benedikt;

(I added David Frankel to this list, you will see why in a moment as you
read. David, you will likewise understand, please read this thread.)

Your RDF Data Cube Vocabulary is right on target in my view.  There is a
group within the XBRL community which is modeling something similar for
XBRL. David Frankel is leading that effort. David can explain this better,
but in short as I understand it; XBRL is trying to leverage the work of the
on CWM, Common Warehouse Metamodel: http://www.omg.org/spec/CWM/ 

What I believe would be a good thing is if your data cube, XBRL's data cube,
and the CWM data cube were 100% semantically interoperable.

The second thing is that XBRL has a business rules language (XBRL Formula)
and business rules engines (part of an XBRL processor which implements XBRL
Formula).  Business rules provides important functionality to the sorts of
things XBRL does with financial reporting (making sure the information is
correct) and I believe that this same functionality is necessary for quality
business reporting of any kind; financial, nonfinancial, government,
industry, anything.

The question is how to put all these things together?  We have the
Government Linked Data Working Group, Data Transparency Coalition
(http://datacoalition.org/) pushing on the DATA Act
(http://keepthewebopen.com/data).  We have the ADMS folks in Europe pushing
more on semantics (https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/adms/home) and I am
sure I left a few out.

How do we make all these things "play well" together and serve government
and business well, globally?

So basically, that is my view.  XBRL and your RDF Data Cube Vocabulary
should be interoperable.

I am sure you and David will have a lot to talk about!

Cheers,

Charlie

-----Original Message-----
From: Benedikt Kämpgen [mailto:kaempgen@fzi.de] 
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 2:41 AM
To: 'Charles Hoffman'; public-gld-comments@w3.org
Cc: O'Riain, Sean; 'Andreas Harth'
Subject: RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data section of
Linked Data Cookbook

Dear Charles Hoffman,

Thanks for your recommendation to look more closely into XBRL, for instance,
w.r.t. the application of business rules on Linked Data. 

What may be of interest in this regard:

1) In GLD, we are considering to add XBRL use cases to the development of
the "RDF Data Cube Vocabulary" (QB) for publishing statistics (such as
financial disclosures). See [1] for the current vocabulary QB. Examples of
possible use cases:

1.1)  Colleagues and I have used QB at [2] (an XBRL challenge submission) to
publish XBRL filings from SEC as Linked Data and to consume those filings
using Online Analytical Processing. 

1.2) At [3] of our current QB use case document (not official, reviewed or
published), a possible use case (UC 10) is described that transforms
financial statistics as Linked Data reusing QB into XBRL.

2) There will be a paper on using rules on financial Linked Data (XBRL as
Linked Data) in the FEOSW workshop at ESWC 2012 [4]  

I would be happy to hear your opinion about using XBRL in use cases of the
RDF Data Cube Vocabulary.

Best,

Benedikt

[1] <http://www.w3.org/TR/2012/WD-vocab-data-cube-20120405/>
[2] <http://xbrl.us/research/appdev/pages/275.aspx#>
[3]
<http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/gld/raw-file/default/data-cube-ucr/index.html#transfo
rming-published-statistics-into-xbrl--uc-10> 
[4] <http://nadir.uc3m.es/feosw2012/#ui-tabs-9>
Title: Using SPIN to Formalise Accounting Regulations on the Semantic Web

Authors: Dennis Spohr, Philipp Cimiano, John McCrae and Seán O'Riain

Abstract:
The eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) has standardised financial
reporting and provide a machine-interpretable format that makes financial
and business reports easier to access and consume.
Leveraging XBRL with Open Linked Data for purposes such as multi-dimensional
regulatory querying and investigation requires XBRL formulisation as RDF.
This paper investigates the use of of-the-shelf Semantic Web technologies to
formulise accounting regulations specified in XBRL jurisdictional
taxonomies. Specifically the use of the SPARQL Inferencing Notation (SPIN)
with RDF to represent these accounting regulations as rule constraints, not
cater for in the RDF abstract model is investigated. We move beyond previous
RDF to XBRL transformations and investigate how SPIN enhanced formalisation
enables inferencing of financial statement facts associated with financial
reporting concepts and sophisticated consistency checks, which evaluate the
correctness of reported financial data with respect to the calculation
requirements imposed by accounting regulation. The approach illustrated
through two use cases demonstrates the use of SPIN to meet central
requirements for financial data and regulatory modelling.


--
AIFB, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Phone: +49 721 608-47946
Email: benedikt.kaempgen@kit.edu
Web: http://www.aifb.kit.edu/web/Hauptseite/en 


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Hoffman [mailto:CharlesHoffman@olywa.net]
> Sent: Monday, April 16, 2012 4:28 PM
> To: public-gld-comments@w3.org
> Subject: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data section 
> of Linked Data Cookbook
> 
> This is a great working group, nicely organized.  In particular the 
> Linked
Data
> Cookbook is quite useful.
> 
> 
> 
> I do have some feedback for the High Quality Linked Data section of 
> that Linked Data Cookbook.
> 
> 
> 
> It is my view that one thing missing from the list of items necessary 
> for
high
> quality linked data is business rules.  In particular computations or
relations
> between information items.
> 
> 
> 
> This is a very good summary/example of what I am taking about and way 
> I have this position:
> 
> 
> 
> http://xbrl.squarespace.com/journal/2010/5/27/census-bureau-confirms-
> error-revises-data-set.html
> 
> 
> 
> The cliff notes are that the US Census Bureau published data, the 
> format
was
> CSV.  If the data were in RDF, the same issue would exist.  The data 
> had
an
> error in it.  It was not until I created business rules to be sure 
> that my
use of
> the data was correct that I discovered an error in the US Census data.  
> I
found
> this error because I wanted to be sure the XBRL information I was 
> creating was correct. As such, I created business rules, using XBRL, 
> to verify that
my
> data set was correct.  And that is how I found the error.
> 
> 
> 
> Said another way, if the data set had business rules provided WITH the
data
> set, then (a) those providing the data would have become aware of the
error
> and (b) those using the data could both better understand the
relationships
> because they are articulated and they can validate the information 
> prior
to
> use to confirm that there is no error.
> 
> 
> 
> Thank you for considering this feedback.
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> 
> 
> Charles Hoffman, CPA

Received on Thursday, 26 April 2012 15:52:14 UTC