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

Dear Charlie,

Thank you for this discussion.

I was not referring to your semantic model/reference implementation. I meant
the ontology at [1] which describes well classes of a multidimensional model
but does not define object properties between instances of such classes.
This would render representation of XBRL filings or taxonomies reusing the
ontology difficult. For instance, how could one describe that a dimension is
part of a specific hypercube or that a fact has a specific dimension and
member?

The RDF Data Cube Vocabulary (QB) includes such properties to fully
represent a multidimensional model. I would be happy to explain the
correspondence to you in more detail if you like. Also, we have published a
paper on mapping QB and a multidimensional model [2].

Thanks for the pointer to your new ontology [3], which is more specific to
financial reporting than the previous ontology and which introduces classes
of the Financial Report Semantics and Dynamics Theory. However, describing
instances of filings (or even taxonomies) would again be difficult, since
the ontology is missing object properties.

Maybe you are interested in how we are currently describing XBRL filings
using QB. The Edgar Linked Data Wrapper [4] translates filings from the SEC
on-the-fly into Linked Data. See [5] for an example filing. Besides QB, we
are reusing other ontologies, e.g., RDFS (just like you), and SKOS [7]. If
you are wondering about the difference between Linked Data and OWL, Linked
Data (see [6] for a description by Tim Berners-Lee) refers to general best
practices of making RDF available on the Web, whereas OWL is one specific
ontology language that can also be represented in RDF. 

Already quite a few ontologies/vocabularies to describe XBRL
filings/taxonomies can be found in the literature, but maybe none of them
does it properly. It would be great, however, if your ontology would be
linkable to QB (or even better, reuse QB). This way, every application that
works with statistics described with QB, would also work with filings
published using your ontology.

I hope what I meant is clearer now.

> Yes, there is validation software. This is an example of validation which
has
> been run against every SEC XBRL financial filing:
> https://edgardashboard.xbrlcloud.com/edgar-dashboard/dashboard.do
Thanks for this interesting pointer.

Best,

Benedikt

[1]
<http://www.xbrlsite.com/DigitalFinancialReporting/Ontologies/Multidimension
alModel.xml>
[2] <http://www.aifb.kit.edu/web/Inproceedings3211/en> 
[3]
<http://www.xbrlsite.com/DigitalFinancialReporting/Ontologies/2012-04-15/Dig
italFinancialReport.xml>
[4] <http://edgarwrap.ontologycentral.com/>
[5] <edgarwrap.ontologycentral.com/archive/909832/0001193125-10-230379#ds>
[6] <http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html>
[7] <http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/>

-- 
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: Thursday, May 10, 2012 7:27 PM
> To: 'Benedikt Kämpgen'; 'Frankel, David'; public-gld-comments@w3.org
> Cc: 'O'Riain, Sean'; 'Andreas Harth'; 'Herm Fischer'
> Subject: RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data section
of
> Linked Data Cookbook
> 
> See this blog post of mine which explains the best attempt I can make at
> creating an RDF/OWL representation of what is in the other documentation I
> pointed you to.
> 
> This is the blog post (it has a graphic generated via Protégé):
> 
> http://xbrl.squarespace.com/journal/2012/5/10/digital-financial-report-
> seman
> tics-expressed-using-rdfowl.html
> 
> This is the RDF/OWL ontology:
> 
> http://www.xbrlsite.com/DigitalFinancialReporting/Ontologies/2012-04-
> 15/Digi
> talFinancialReport.xml
> 
> This has a ways to go, but hopefully within two or three months I will
have
> both the ontology build out more and I will have converted every SEC XBRL
> financial filing into RDF following this ontology.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Charlie
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Hoffman [mailto:CharlesHoffman@olywa.net]
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2012 8:46 AM
> To: 'Benedikt Kämpgen'; 'Frankel, David'; 'public-gld-comments@w3.org'
> Cc: 'O'Riain, Sean'; 'Andreas Harth'; 'Herm Fischer'
> Subject: RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data section
of
> Linked Data Cookbook
> 
> Benedikt;
> 
> Yes, there is validation software. This is an example of validation which
has
> been run against every SEC XBRL financial filing:
> 
> https://edgardashboard.xbrlcloud.com/edgar-dashboard/dashboard.do
> 
> That is just scratching the surface.
> 
> I am not sure you are seeing all the different things that the
> model/reference implementation is achieving.  There is a lot going on.
> 
> My model is simple, but it is not simplistic.  You say my model is not
> "sufficiently detailed".  What specifically can you show that is missing?
> 
> I have run every SEC XBRL financial filing through my model for each of
the
> 8000 or so SEC filers.  Works fine.  My model does not detail the business
> rules currently, but I have that infoset also.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Charlie
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benedikt Kämpgen [mailto:kaempgen@fzi.de]
> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2012 7:20 AM
> To: 'Charles Hoffman'; 'Benedikt Kämpgen'; 'Frankel, David'; public-gld-
> comments@w3.org
> Cc: 'O'Riain, Sean'; 'Andreas Harth'; 'Herm Fischer'
> Subject: RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data section
of
> Linked Data Cookbook
> 
> Dear Charlie,
> 
> I had found these links before, but thank you very much for putting them
> into context for me.
> 
> Regarding your reference implementation of a SEC filing, including
business
> rules etc. [1]: This is a comprehensive description in HTML and XML of how
> one valid filing can be composed into its many parts, and validated. I am
> wondering whether there is a description (or even software) to
automatically
> retrieve and validate this kind of information from any filing. If there
were, I
> could try to understand it and try to do a mapping to a Linked Data
> representation.
> 
> Regarding your efforts in aligning XBRL with a common multidimensional
> model
> [2]: Your ontology [3] is a nice start but I think that filings cannot be
> sufficiently detailed described with it to be of use for applications.
XBRL
> Dimensions (Herm Fischer) [4] and the XBRL Abstract Model [5] (David
> Frankel) go into much more detail, and I see a lot of correspondences to
the
> RDF Data Cube Vocabulary (QB); yet, making the models work together
> technically and semantically, would require some thinking.
> 
> Regarding use cases: The standardization of a Linked Data vocabulary
typically
> is mainly driven by requirements and issues that have been derived from
> concrete use cases. Just "aligning XBRL and QB" might be too fuzzy. Our
XBRL
> submission [6] might describe a use case, but I guess, the more
real-world-
> motivated a use case, the better.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Benedikt
> 
> 
> [1] <http://www.xbrlsite.com/2012/ReferenceImplementation/2012-04-
> 15/>
> [2]
> <http://digitalfinancialreporting.wikispaces.com/Multidimensional+Model>
> [3]
> <http://www.xbrlsite.com/DigitalFinancialReporting/Ontologies/Multidimen
> sion
> alModel.xml>
> [4]
> <http://www.xbrl.org/Specification/XDT-REC-2006-09-18+Corrected-Errata-
> 2009-
> 09-07.htm>
> [5]
> <http://xbrl.org/Specification/abstractmodel-primary/PWD-2011-10-
> 19/abstract
> model-primary-PWD-2011-10-19.html>
> [6] <http://xbrl.us/research/appdev/pages/275.aspx#>
> 
> --
> 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: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 3:35 PM
> > To: 'Benedikt Kämpgen'; 'Frankel, David'; public-gld-comments@w3.org
> > Cc: 'O'Riain, Sean'; 'Andreas Harth'; 'Herm Fischer'
> > Subject: RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data
> > section
> of
> > Linked Data Cookbook
> >
> > Benedikt
> >
> > In terms of the difficulties in retrieving all linkbase information
> > from
> the
> > filings and taxonomies; I have distilled SEC filings down to a set of
> > easy
> to
> > understand infosets.  The infosets represent the data model semantics.
> > You can get all this information here:
> >
> > http://www.xbrlsite.com/2012/ReferenceImplementation/2012-04-15/
> >
> > In particular, this is the fact table infoset:
> >
> > XML:
> > http://www.xbrlsite.com/2012/ReferenceImplementation/2012-04-
> 15/abc-
> > 20101231
> > _FactTable_SEC.xml
> > HTML:
> > http://www.xbrlsite.com/2012/ReferenceImplementation/2012-04-
> > 15_Verification
> > /Viewer.html (Go to the individual "Fact Tables" for the components).
> >
> > This is the relations infoset:
> >
> > XML:
> > http://www.xbrlsite.com/2012/ReferenceImplementation/2012-04-
> 15/abc-
> > 20101231
> > _Relations_SEC.xml
> > HTML:
> > http://www.xbrlsite.com/2012/ReferenceImplementation/2012-04-
> 15/abc-
> > 20101231
> > _Relations.html
> >
> >
> > There is a lot more to all this, all is explained here if you are
> > interested:
> >
> > http://xbrl.squarespace.com/digital-financial-reporting/
> >
> > Basically, you can work with all this "stuff" semantically at the
> > report
> level.
> > No need to even understand the XBRL technical syntax, focus on the
> > report semantics.  Dave Frankel is developing something similar in a
> > more
> official
> > format.  But, I know my model works; it is tested against thousands
> > and thousands of SEC filings.  If my model works with your model I am
> > quite confident that your model, my model, Dave's model, XBRL, can be
> > made 100% interoperable.
> >
> > If you need any additional information of test cases, be sure to let
> > me
> know.
> > I don’t know what you desire in terms of a business use case, but I
> > have business use cases "coming out of my ears".
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Charlie
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Benedikt Kämpgen [mailto:kaempgen@fzi.de]
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 2:32 AM
> > To: 'Frankel, David'; Charles Hoffman; 'Benedikt Kämpgen'; public-gld-
> > comments@w3.org
> > Cc: 'O'Riain, Sean'; 'Andreas Harth'; Herm Fischer
> > Subject: RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data
> > section
> of
> > Linked Data Cookbook
> >
> > Dear Charles, Dear David,
> >
> > Thanks for your messages and your exciting thoughts about making the
> > RDF Data Cube vocabulary (QB), XBRL, and CWM interoperable.
> >
> > > 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.
> > I would agree. But there is probably some alignment work to do: For
> > instance, when translating XBRL into QB [1] we had difficulties in
> retrieving all
> > linkbase information from the filings and taxonomies (e.g., concept
> > hierarchies and calculation arcs) and representing them in RDF.
> > Also, I am aware of the CWM multidimensional model and would be
> > interested in how it can be extended for sharing multidimensional data.
> >
> > > other data stores and metadata to XBRL.  I'm cc'ing Herm Fischer,
> > > who is a key person in our current effort to raise the level of
> > > abstraction at
> > which
> > > XBRL report design and creation operates, and who is doing some
> > > prototyping around the use of linked data with XBRL.
> > Since we have been working on using XBRL with Linked Data [1], I would
> > be happy to give feedback on your prototypes.
> >
> > > 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.
> > Regarding business rules, we are considering refining QB to more
> > formally define relationships between data cubes (e.g., aggregations),
> > which may help to represent more complex formulae or business rules
> > using
> QB data.
> >
> > > The question is how to put all these things together?
> > One way to start this effort would be to define a use case around
> > XBRL, QB and possibly CWM, which could help to derive requirements for
> > them to become interoperable. Some proposed use cases for QB are
> > available
> at [2].
> > Their technical detail varies, but in general they should give an
> > overview
> of
> > what QB (e.g., together with XBRL, CWM) may allow to do.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Benedikt
> >
> > [1] <http://xbrl.us/research/appdev/pages/275.aspx#>
> > [2]
> <http://www.w3.org/2011/gld/wiki/Data_Cube_Vocabulary/Use_Cases>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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: Frankel, David [mailto:david.frankel@sap.com]
> > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 7:13 PM
> > > To: Charles Hoffman; 'Benedikt Kämpgen'; public-gld-comments@w3.org
> > > Cc: 'O'Riain, Sean'; 'Andreas Harth'; Herm Fischer
> > > Subject: RE: Feedback on Ingredients for High Quality Linked Data
> > > section
> > of
> > > Linked Data Cookbook
> > >
> > > Thanks, Charlie.  I consider linked data to be important for
> > > semantic federation of the various XBRL taxonomies and report data,
> > > and for linking other data stores and metadata to XBRL.  I'm cc'ing
> > > Herm Fischer, who is a key person in our current effort to raise the
> > > level of abstraction at
> > which
> > > XBRL report design and creation operates, and who is doing some
> > > prototyping around the use of linked data with XBRL.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > --David
> > >
> > > David S. Frankel
> > > Standards and Open Source Strategy
> > > Technology and Innovation Platform Group SAP Labs LLC; Palo Alto,
> > > California USA Phone & Cell +1 530 591-0212
> > > Email: david.frankel@sap.com
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Charles Hoffman [mailto:CharlesHoffman@olywa.net]
> > > Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 8:51 AM
> > > To: 'Benedikt Kämpgen'; public-gld-comments@w3.org
> > > Cc: 'O'Riain, Sean'; 'Andreas Harth'; Frankel, David
> > > Subject: 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-confir
> > > > ms
> > > > -
> > > > 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, 10 May 2012 22:20:06 UTC