Re: Comments on "SKOS: requirements for standardization"

Antoine

see comments in line.

Antoine Isaac  wrote on 19/11/06 21:10:

> Hi Bernard,
> 
>>
>>
>> some comments on
>> http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/public/skos/press/dc2006/camera-ready-paper.pdf 
>>
>>
>>
>> On the whole I agree with much of this, though I'm concerned (and 
>> probably a little confused) about the use of the term 'index' as well 
>> as some of the underlying assumptions of SKOS.
> 
> 
> This use seems to me quite common in the information science world. What 
> makes you really unconfortable with?

I'm not from that world so the term is unfamiliar to me. I don't think 
we can assume that all our readers will be from that world so I think we 
should spell out what our WG (and information science) mean by an 'index'.


>> My background in using SW technologies is pretty much restricted to 
>> the two use cases identified in the email archive: conceptual 
>> hypermedia [1] and search [2]. Thus my comments on this paper are 
>> driven by the requirements and constraints of those use cases.
>>
>>
>> '2.  Defining the scope of SKOS'
>> I'm not sure how to match the workflow described in this section with 
>> the workflows of the two use cases I mentioned above. Neither of the 
>> use cases appear to have this workflow.
> 
> 
> Concerning your UC [2] one could say that the controlled vocabulary is 
> used to create a "temporary/virtual" index for the search: the original 
> one augmented with the variants found using the controlled vocabulary.
> I agree that this is however a variation from alistair's workflow, the 
> main difference being obviously the fact that here your index are not 
> manually created. Anyway, when Alistair mentioned it, it was refering to 
> the "original" SKOS. I think nothing prevents us from inserting other 
> generic scenarios in the loop!

OK, good.

>> '3.  Anticipated Software Architecture'
>> This section seems to omit what seems to me will be a requirement: the 
>> transformation of an existing taxonomy/ontology into a SKOS taxonomy. 
>> The transformation may be batch or dynamic, but I believe will be 
>> necessary.
>>
> I think you're right about the need for a conversion. However, I'm not 
> sure this has repercussions on SKOS requirements. Could you be more 
> precise about which kind of req you envisioned ?

OK, let me give you a couple of concrete examples:
1) The Gene Ontology. There's a version of the Gene Ontology expressed 
in OWL. I'd like a version in SKOS. I want a way of 
transforming/transcoding GO-OWL so that I can use it in both of my use 
cases. I have no control over GO-OWL, and have no idea how often it 
changes, so I'd like the transcoding to be dynamic, such that when I ask 
a service for a SKOS version of GO, it transcodes the current version 
into SKOS for me.

2) The Sun Unified Product Taxonomy (UPT). The UPT is expressed in RDFS, 
and I'd like a version in SKOS (for use in both use cases). However, Sun 
has control over the UPT and can produce a parallel version in SKOS 
whenever the RDFS version changes. So, in this case all that's required 
is a batch conversion.


>> '4.2 Maximizing the Profitability of Controlled Vocabularies '
>> I think it would be useful to state in this section that the adoption 
>> of SKOS may also increase the profitability of _existing_ vocabularies 
>> by enabling them to be used by a greater number of applications (if 
>> the vocabularies can be transformed into a SKOS representation).
> 
> 
> 
> You're right. Even if the cost don't lower the cost you can make more 
> benefit by sharing it more easily, so there is profitability in what you 
> refer to.
> I think that this is actually something that has driven the SKOS idea 
> since the beginning, but it might be so obvious that SKOS people could 
> forget to tell about it ;-)

Indeed!

regards

Bernard


> 
> Best,
> 
> Antoine
> 
>>
>> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2006Oct/0044.html
>> [2] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swd-wg/2006Nov/0030.html
>>
>>
> 
> 
>

Received on Monday, 27 November 2006 11:25:00 UTC