RE: [All] SWEO requests input on SKOS message

Hi Ed,

You're suggestions look good.

Cheers,

Alistair.

--
Alistair Miles
Research Associate
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
Didcot
Oxfordshire OX11 0QX
United Kingdom
Web: http://purl.org/net/aliman
Email: a.j.miles@rl.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1235 445440  

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-swd-wg-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-swd-wg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Ed Summers
> Sent: 19 November 2007 21:18
> To: SWD Working Group
> Subject: Re: [All] SWEO requests input on SKOS message
> 
> 
> I reviewed the semweb-faq [1] in light of SKOS and have a few 
> suggestions. I inferred from Tom's message that the SWEO 
> folks are looking for feedback on the current use of SKOS in 
> the FAQ, as well as a response to a new "What is SKOS?" 
> question. Alistair's timely posting [2] came in handy for the 
> latter.  Please feel to throw darts at this...
> 
> //Ed
> 
> -----
> 
> ... Must I use ontologies for Semantic Web Applications?
> 
> "These different technologies differ in expressiveness but also in
> complexity: applications have a choice (RDF Schemas represent 
> the simplest ontology level, OWL Full being the most complex 
> one, SKOS when less rigorous terminologies, glossaries, are 
> to be used, etc).
> They also have a choice of not to use any of those; the usage 
> of ontologies is not a requirement for Semantic Web applications."
> 
> I think it's important to encourage people to reuse 
> ontologies before creating their own, and SKOS is a good 
> example of a re-usable ontology. So here is some slightly 
> modified language.
> 
> These technologies differ in expressiveness but also in complexity.
> Applications have a choice along a range from RDF Schema for 
> representing the simplest ontology level, to OWL Full for 
> maximum expressiveness. In addition semantic web users are 
> encouraged to leverage existing ontologies where possible: 
> e.g. SKOS for representing basic structures like thesauri, 
> taxonomies or other controlled  vocabularies. Good places to 
> look for existing ontologies are detailed elsewhere in this FAQ [3].
> 
> -----
> 
> ... tagging, folksonomies
> 
> "While tagging is easy and somewhat useful, it destroys a lot 
> of the semantics of the data. In the Semantic Web, instead of 
> tagging data items with strings, they can be related to other 
> resources which can be uniquely identified, like ones 
> representing people and places. The relationships are very 
> specific, like who took the photograph, who is in the 
> photograph, where the photograph was taken."
> 
> It seems to me that the semantic web community is beginning 
> to see that folksonomies and tagging may have a role to play 
> in the semantic web. For examples of this see flickrwrapper 
> at dbpedia [4] and Alistair's latest thinking on SKOS [2]. I 
> think it would serve the semantic web effort well by 
> encouraging this collaboration rather than dismantling it. So 
> here's a rephrasing of the above:
> 
> While tagging is easy and somewhat useful, it often destroys 
> a lot of the semantics of the data. A folksonomy tag is 
> typically 2/3 of a RDF triple. The subject is known: e.g. the 
> URL for the flickr image being tagged, or the URL being 
> bookmarked in delicious. The object is known:
> e.g. http://flickr.com/photos/tags/cats or 
> http://del.icio.us/tag/cats. But the predicate to connect 
> them is often missing. Machine-tags [5] lend themselves to 
> RDF more since they better capture the relationship between 
> the subject and the object.
> Folksonomy providers are encouraged to capture or infer the 
> semantics around their tags and to leverage semantic web 
> technologies such as RDF and SKOS to publish machine readable 
> versions of their concept schemes.
> 
> -----
> 
> ... What is SKOS?
> 
> The Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) is an 
> ontology for expressing the basic structure and content of 
> concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, 
> subject heading lists, taxonomies, glossaries, folksonomies, 
> other types of controlled vocabularies. It provides a 
> standard, low-cost way of migrating existing concept schemes 
> to the Semantic Web, so that they can be used as-is for the 
> development of lightweight Semantic Web applications. SKOS is 
> increasingly seen as a bridging technology, providing the 
> missing link between the rigorous logical formalism of 
> ontology languages such as OWL and the chaotic, informal and 
> weakly-structured world of social approaches to information 
> management, as exemplified by social tagging applications.
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ
> [2] http://isegserv.itd.rl.ac.uk/blogs/alistair/archives/84
> [3] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/SW-FAQ#findont
> [4] http://www4.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/flickrwrappr/
> [5] http://www.flickr.com/groups/api/discuss/72157594497877875/
> 
>

Received on Tuesday, 20 November 2007 16:13:26 UTC