RE: SemWeb terminology page

I agree that that the essential function of controlled vocabularies
isn't to "describe concepts". I think that "label concepts" is closer to
the mark. I'm not completely comfortable with the "that are used in
actual metadata" because these labels could also be used in content to
improve Google results. That was my cryptic point on the Subject Search
use case:

http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/lld/wiki/Use_Case_Subject_Search

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lld-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Karen Coyle
> Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 6:15 PM
> To: public-lld
> Subject: RE: SemWeb terminology page
> 
> In her book "The intellectual foundation of information organization"
> Svenonius has a section on controlled and uncontrolled vocabularies.
> Her statement about controlled vocabularies says:
> 
> "[Controlled vocabularies] are constructs in an artificial language;
> their purpose is to map users' vocabulary to a standardized vocabulary
> and to bring like information together." (p.88) [1]
> 
> Do we agree that this is the role of our #1 group? I ask because I
> perceive this to be different from the original proposed definition:
> 
> "These describe concepts that are used in actual metadata."
> 
> If you look at FRAD [2] you see that the assignment of terminology to
> the concept is of equal or greater importance than any description of
> the concept itself. In fact, that's what I would emphasize as the role
> of a controlled vocabulary: that it is a method to *control* *language
> terms*. Many controlled vocabularies have minimal information about
> the concepts, but all exist to make a selection of particular terms of
> use.
> 
> kc
> 
> [1] http://openlibrary.org/works/OL475973W -- a basic foundation for
> how librarianship views KO.
> [2]
>
http://www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-authority-
> data
> 
> Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:
> 
> >> > It would be odd to dismiss SKOS because we determined it was
> > designed
> >> to
> >> > manage "concepts" rather than "controlled vocabularies".
> >>
> >> I certainly wouldn't want to dismiss SKOS!  The point is that
> >> SKOS organizes sets of lexical strings via underlying concepts.
> >
> > I would argue that "organizing" concepts or labels is getting into
> > optional features of SKOS. Your other comments indicate you would
> agree.
> > The essential features for authority control, in my view, are the
> > ability to identify something real (a skos:Concept), associate them
> in a
> > scheme (via skos:inScheme) and give them skos:pref/altLabels
> > (potentially  "real" via skosxl:Label). Some forms of authority
> control
> > may want to use additional gravy from SKOS, but others could just as
> > well link out to other models via foaf:focus and organize from
there.
> > Either or both ways, SKOS can act as a schematic naming network.
> >
> > Jeff
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Karen Coyle
> kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
> ph: 1-510-540-7596
> m: 1-510-435-8234
> skype: kcoylenet
> 
>

Received on Saturday, 4 December 2010 14:41:45 UTC