Re: VIAF contributor model

Jeff, this may not serve your VIAF contributor needs, but I have done  
a variation on the diagram of my own, although I have a basic question  
that I will get to in a moment.

Each of the foaf (and frad, should we use those) classes in your  
diagram is a subclass of owl:Thing, but it seems to me that the proper  
relator to foaf:focus is not owl:Thing. It could be each foaf class,  
or we could create a class that represents those classes when they are  
used as library author names. I have arbitrary called this class  
"frad:Thing." frad:Thing is then the focus of skos:Concept. This makes  
more sense to me, and I'll be interested to hear if it resonates with  
others.

http://kcoyle.net/temp/nameAuthDiag.png

The question that I have is our intention in this model: whether we  
intend that authority control persons are always BOTH persons and  
concepts, or whether we would like that to be an OR, with the option  
of making both relationships when we intend both. If it is the latter,  
then our diagram must change again.

kc

Quoting "Young,Jeff (OR)" <jyoung@oclc.org>:

> The VIAF RDF is badly in need of an update. For example, VIAF has a bad
> habit of assuming that "clusters" automatically map to "Person".
> Upgrading it to recognize the reality of "Organization"  and perhaps a
> few others shouldn't be too hard, but there are other issues worth
> considering.
>
>
>
> After closer inspection, it looks like the VIAF ontology
> <http://viaf.org/ontology/1.1/>  reinvents some key aspects of SKOS. It
> would be nice to start factoring out these misalignments ASAP. This
> group's input on the possibilities would be greatly appreciated.
>
>
>
> Background: VIAF started out using foaf:Person for its "real world
> objects", switched to skos:Concept, and was starting to wobble back to
> foaf:Person. At that point, the decision was made to identify both for
> the sake of argument:
>
>
>
> http://viaf.org/viaf/102333412/#foaf:Person
>
> http://viaf.org/viaf/102333412/#skos:Concept
>
>
>
> It was far from clear at the time whether both made sense, separate
> identity was necessary, or what property should be used to connect them.
>
>
>
>
> At the F2F, Martin Malmsten (who is involved with contributions to VIAF
> via SELIBR) pointed out the new foaf:focus element that seems to do a
> very good job of rationalizing for the connection.
>
>
>
> http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/#term_focus
>
>
>
> Like VIAF, SELIBR also coins URIs for foaf:Person and skos:Concept and
> this seems like a good model for other contributors and VIAF itself to
> follow.
>
>
>
> I'm also inclined to believe that skos:ConceptScheme should be used to
> differentiate different "sources" in VIAF. This could and probably
> should be done regardless of whether the contributors understand or
> publish SKOS themselves. The attached UML is intended to show how this
> could be conceptualized. This presumably requires some explanation, but
> hopefully a picture is worth a thousand words.
>
>
>
> I'm also pretty convinced that the http://viaf.org/ontology/1.1/#Heading
> class needs to be bound to skosxl:Label class in some way
> (rdfs:subClassOf?). I don't think it can completely go away, though,
> because of inconvenient restrictions on the skosxsl:prefLabel and
> skosxl:altLabel.
>
>
>
> Thoughts or questions?
>
>
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
> ---
>
> Jeffrey A. Young
> Software Architect
> OCLC Research, Mail Code 410
> OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc.
> 6565 Kilgour Place
> Dublin, OH 43017-3395
> www.oclc.org <http://www.oclc.org>
>
> Voice: 614-764-4342
> Voice: 800-848-5878, ext. 4342
> Fax: 614-718-7477
> Email: jyoung@oclc.org <mailto:jyoung@oclc.org>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Karen Coyle
kcoyle@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet

Received on Saturday, 30 October 2010 14:17:52 UTC