Interoperability between SKOS and BS 8723 Part 5

Some members of the W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group will
already be aware of the ongoing work on BS 8723 "Structured vocabularies
for information retrieval" a BSI standard which we hope will soon form
the basis of revising ISO 2788 and ISO 5964. Although only the first two
parts of it were published in 2005, Parts 3 and 4 are nearing
completion, and Part 5 (the last part) is well advanced. Project ISO
25964 is just now getting under way, with the objective of revising the
two existing ISO standards on this basis.

At all stages the development work has kept an eye on the parallel
development of SKOS. Some active SKOS collaborators have commented
helpfully on our drafts, and our own team have tried to contribute to
the SKOS discussions. So we hope there is already a substantial
commonality of approach.

BS 8723 Part 5 focuses specifically on exchange formats for
interoperability, and alignment with SKOS becomes all the more
important. As you can see from the development site at
http://porism.tdmweb.co.uk/BS8723/, we hope to test the feasibility of
mapping in both directions between our schema and SKOS (as well as other
popular formats). Please be warned that all you see on that site
constitutes work in progress, subject to change without notification.
The model is not final, and changes to it affect the schema too. (There
is even some possibility we might switch to an alternative schema, based
on Zthes.) Despite this instability, I hope you can see good grounds for
collaboration.

Would it be possible to work even more closely together? Could
interoperability with the BS8723 data model be considered a requirement
for SKOS? Even if you judge this premature while our model is still
under discussion, you might be able to suggest a more appropriate
procedure?

Any suggestion you have will be appreciated.
Thanks
Stella Dextre Clarke
convenor, BSI committee IDT/2/2/1



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Stella Dextre Clarke
Information Consultant
Luke House, West Hendred, Wantage, Oxon, OX12 8RR, UK
Tel: 01235-833-298
Fax: 01235-863-298
SDClarke@LukeHouse.demon.co.uk
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Received on Monday, 9 July 2007 13:54:02 UTC