SKOS comment: naming of hasTopConcept

Hi SWD members,

We're developing an application where the Knowledge Organisation component is 
based on SKOS. Other Semantic Web technologies are used throughout as well.

We anticipate that associative relations will be used extensively, possibly 
also sub-propertying skos:related. We think of the system as a graph rather 
than a tree. It is thus not natural for us to name any top concepts, but we 
have a requirement that we identify certain concepts as concepts of 
particular importance, starting points, or something like that.

skos:hasTopConcept seems almost right for our use, but it has the shortcoming 
that it seems to tie strongly in with a hierarchical structure. This seems 
odd to us, as SKOS does support associative relations, and they seems left 
out.

We would therefore like to know if the SWD has looked into a having a similar 
construct as skos:hasTopConcept for non-hierarchical structures, and if not, 
if the SWD could look into it. Perhaps calling it "skos:hasMainTopic" and 
dropping the mention of a "hierarchical" from the spec would be OK?

Also, for our application, it would simplify some queries if there were an 
inverse of this property.

Kind regards 

Kjetil Kjernsmo
-- 
Senior Knowledge Engineer
Direct: +47 6783 1136 | Mobile: +47 986 48 234
Email: kjetil.kjernsmo@computas.com   
Web: http://www.computas.com/

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Received on Monday, 5 May 2008 15:36:40 UTC