RE: SemWeb terminology page

Karen,

Note that skosxl:Label is available for the "two thing" model you refer
to. SKOS-aware processing should presumably treat skos:prefLabel and
skosxl:prefLabel interchangeably:

ex:hunger a skos:Concept ;
	skos:inScheme ex:myScheme ;
	skos:prefLabel "Hunger" ;
	skosxl:prefLabel ex:hungerLabel ;

ex:hungerLabel a skosxl:Label ;
	skos:inScheme ex:myScheme ;
	skosxl:literalForm "Hunger" ;

ex:myScheme a skos:ConceptScheme .

"Controlled vocabulary" systems should be able to choose either or both
approaches.

Jeff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-lld-request@w3.org [mailto:public-lld-request@w3.org] On
> Behalf Of Karen Coyle
> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 10:29 AM
> To: Antoine Isaac
> Cc: public-lld
> Subject: Re: SemWeb terminology page
> 
> Antoine, I agree with your thinking, but I'm not sure how to make it
> acceptable to libraries, especially if they continue to see the name
> as the "thing," which I believe is the prevalent viewpoint. cf. FRSAD
> which has two entities: thema (the concept) and nomen (the name given
> to the concept). I would tend to model subject authorities as a
> concept (with a URI), a variety of labels (prefLabel, altLabel, etc.),
> and a good definition. In my version, there is only one "thing": the
> concept. In the library version there are two things: the concept and
> the name. Is this a difference that matters? Or is it just two ways of
> saying the same thing?
> 
> As for MADS, all of the MADS elements have been defined as subordinate
> to SKOS. In fact, I think that madsrdf:authoritativeLabel might be
> skos:prefLabel with provenance. FRAD defines it that way, in a sense,
> by adding guidance rules and the producing agency to both the
> identifier and the name. This fits in with the madsrdf definition of
> authority:
> 
> "Authoritative (also Authority, Authoritative form): the endorsed form
> of something"
> 
> That definitely implies that there is an agent doing the endorsing.
> 
> kc
> 
> Quoting Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>:
> 
> > Hi Karen,
> >
> > Trying to reformulate your objections would lead me to something
> like:
> > - a linked data reference dataset focuses on reference URIs
> > - a library reference dataset focuses on the terms
> > So a "Library Linked Data reference dataset" should aim at giving
> > URIs and not forget the terminological aspect?
> >
> > I don't think this in real contradiction with the idea of what a LD
> > reference dataset should be: of course on LD providing URIs is
> > important but most often you want to put relevant data for these
> > URIs. And there's no constraint on what should be relevant or not:
> > it's not because it's LD that labels do not count. After all, one
> > main interest of the dbPedia dataset for many LOD scenarios is also
> > that it comes with all these traductions, and sometimes synonyms...
> > There is clearly value for the entire LD world if the reference
> > datasets can come with better terminological information contributed
> > by the library domain.
> >
> > Now indeed this does not say precisely how to get from a traditional
> > library authority file to a LD reference set. In fact there are many
> > solutions: see how VIAF, from traditional authority data, generates
> > all these representations (foaf:person, skos:Concept) which can be
> > useful on the LD space. It is more a matter of being ready to accept
> > that the authority data can be re-packaged according to many
> > different models.
> >
> > By the way on the specific MADS/SKOS issue:
> > madsrdf:authoritativeLabel is a sub-property of skos:prefLabel.
> >
> > Antoine
> >
> >
> >> Quoting Antoine Isaac <aisaac@few.vu.nl>:
> >>
> >>> Hello Karen,
> >>>
> >>> Would that definition of Svenonius be compatible with the view in
> [1]?
> >>
> >> I don't believe it is, which is why I posted it here. This
> >> definition has also helped me think about the models developed by
> >> FRAD and FRSAD, which both have an entity for the authoritative
> >> term itself. (And this relates to the post I forwarded about MADS.)
> >> A primary purpose of library authority data is to control the text
> >> string itself as a surrogate for the thing it represents. This is
> >> in addition to developing an identity for the thing. (I'm not
> >> saying this is *right*, I'm just saying this is what libraries
> >> claim to be doing.)
> >>
> >> I think it is easiest to see this in terms of subject (concept)
> >> authorities. The concepts have relationships to each other, such as
> >> broader and narrower. Those can be modeled with URIs that represent
> >> the concepts. Each concept, however, also has one authoritative
> >> expression in "natural" language. In the library sense of
> >> controlled vocabulary, those terms identify the concept for the
> >> user and control the interaction between the library data and the
> >> library (human) user.
> >>
> >> One thing that may undermine the library emphasis on controlling
> >> actual language terms is that these terms are allowed to change
> >> (after careful and lengthy deliberation :-)). In this sense they do
> >> seem to me to be a kind of prefLabel rather than an actual
> >> identifier (because when you change an identifier you have a
> >> different thing; when you change a label the thing has not
changed).
> >>
> >> Now the question is: is skos:prefLabel = controlled vocabulary
> >> term? The MADS in RDF creates madsrdf:authoritativeLabel,
> >> presumably because skos:prefLabel was not considered adequate to
> >> express this. In a sense this becomes a question about SKOS and the
> >> meaning of prefLabel.
> >>
> >> If skos:prefLabel had been named skos:authorityLabel, I think
> >> librarians would be more willing to use it. "Authority" is a
> >> stronger concept than "preference." But in the end I think that the
> >> library emphasis on terminology is an artifact of past
> >> technologies. I consider the library practice to be out-dated, but
> >> I note that the practice is being carried forward into RDF and LD
> >> representations.
> >>
> >> So.... I would like to hear Marcia's take on this from the FRSAD
> >> "thema, nomen" point of view.
> >>
> >> kc
> >>
> >>> I have the feeling that yes: reference datasets in LD still
> >>> control the terminology, even if in the LD case the importance of
> >>> "terms" becomes secondary to the one of the resources that these
> >>> terms refer to. But I'm really curious to hear from you (and
> >>> others of course :-) ) on this.
> >>>
> >>> Antoine
> >>>
> >>> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-
> lld/2010Dec/0029.html
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> 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 17:46:21 UTC