Re: Should we adopt SKOS?

+Cc: Jamie

On 9 January 2013 16:29, Richard Wallis <richard.wallis@oclc.org> wrote:
> Coming from the bibliographic world, specifically chairing  the Schema Bib
> Extend Group[1] (who are building a consensus around a group of proposals
> for Schema.org extensions for bibliographic resources, before submitting
> them to this group), I am identifying situations where being able to model
> things as SKOS[2] Concepts held in ConceptSchemes would make a great deal of
> sense.
>
> Working with colleagues we were finding ourselves almost reinventing the
> SKOS model in [proposed] Schema.org vocabulary.
>
> The introduction of External Enumerations[2] provided the ability to link to
> lists of things controlled by external authorities.  An approach used widely
> in the bibliographic and other domains – Library of Congress Subject
> Headings[4] for example.  Many of these authorities are modelled using SKOS
> (Concepts within ConceptSchemes) which introduces a consistent structured
> way to describe relationships (broader/narrower), language specific
> preferred labels, etc.
>
> Sub-typing Intangible for Concept and ConceptScheme, it would be
> comparatively easy to introduce SKOS into Schema.  The benefits I believe
> being to add even more value to External Enumeration; providing a flexible
> simple-ish yet standard pattern for marking up lists of concepts and their
> interrelationships; provide a very easy way for already published
> authoritative lists of concepts to adopt Schema.org and provide valuable
> resources for all to connect with.
>
> For instance VIAF[4] the Virtual International Authority File, a well used
> source of URIs and authoritative names for people and organisations
> (compiled and managed by the bibliographic community but used widely) is
> already in SKOS.  SKOS is also used in many other domains.
>
> I could see this adding value without significant impact on the rest of
> Schema.
>
> What do others think?

I've been thinking in this direction too (and had brief discussion
with Jamie, cc:'d, w.r.t. Freebase's approach).

SKOS has done well and a great many controlled vocabularies in the
thesauri, subject classification and code list tradition are expressed
using it. SKOS handles various cases where 'class/object/property'
models don't capture things well. I'd like to have a way of reflecting
SKOS-oriented data into schema.org descriptions without going
'multi-namespace'. There are also already various corners of
schema.org where different loose notions of 'category' are slipping
in.

My current preference would be to call a new type "Topic" or perhaps
"Category" rather than the more esoteric / vague "Concept", even while
borrowing most structure and terminology from SKOS.

Do you have a strawman list of what you'd hope to include, from a
bibliographic perspective?

Dan

> ~Richard
>
> --
> Richard Wallis
> Technology Evangelist
> OCLC
>
>
>
> [1] http://www.w3.org/community/schemabibex/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/
> [3] http://www.w3.org/wiki/WebSchemas/ExternalEnumerations
> [4] http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects.html
>

Received on Wednesday, 9 January 2013 18:00:57 UTC