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W3C Semantic Web Deployment Working Group
Call for Use Cases: Simple Knowledge Organization Systems (SKOS)
Are you currently using SKOS, or considering using SKOS in the near future? If so, please tell us more by filling in the questionnaire below and sending it back to us or to public-swd-wg@w3.org, preferably before January 14th, 2007.
The information you provide will be influential in guiding the further development of SKOS towards W3C Recommendation status.
We understand that your time is precious, so please don't feel you have to answer every question. However, the more information you can provide, the easier it will be for the Working Group to understand your requirements. Questions marked with an asterix (*) are more important. And, of course, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any trouble answering our questions. A FAQ page will be maintained on http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/wiki/UCFAQ, and a description example is available at http://www.w3.org/2006/07/SWD/wiki/ManuscriptsCase.
We are particularly interested in use cases describing the use of controlled structured vocabularies in distributed, metadata-driven applications. This includes the use of thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading systems and taxonomies to facilitate discovery and retrieval of information. This also includes situations where two or more vocabularies must be "mapped" or "linked" in order to provide applications using heterogeneous metadata from different sources.
However, we're not ruling anything out at this stage, and the Working Group will carefully consider all submissions we receive.
On behalf of the Working Group, thanks in advance for your time,
Antoine Isaac (aisaac@few.vu.nl), Jon Phipps (jphipps@madcreek.com) and Daniel Rubin (dlrubin@stanford.edu)
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Questions marked with an asterix (*) are more important.
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Section 0. Contact and confidentiality
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Contact e-mail:
Do you mind your use case being made public on the working group website and documents?
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Section 1. Application
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In this section we ask you to provide some information about the application for which the vocabulary(ies) and or vocabulary mappings are being used.
Please note:
-- If your use case does not involve any specific application, but consists rather in the description of a specific vocabulary, skip straight to Section 2.
-- If your application makes use of links between different vocabularies, do not forget to fill in Section 3!
1.1. What is the title of the application?
1.2. What is the general purpose of the application?
What services does it provide to the end-user?
*1.3. Provide some examples of the functionality of the application. Try to illustrate all of the functionalities in which the vocabulary(ies) and/or vocabulary mappings are involved.
1.4. What is the architecture of the application?
What are the main components?
Are the components and/or the data distributed across a network, or across the Web?
1.5. Briefly describe any special strategy involved in the processing of user actions, e.g. query expansion using the vocabulary structure.
1.6. Are the functionalities associated with the controlled vocabulary(ies) integrated in any way with functionalities provided by other means? (For example, search and browse using a structured vocabulary might be integrated with free-text searching and/or some sort of social bookmarking or recommender system.)
1.7. Any additional information, references and/or hyperlinks.
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Section 2. Vocabulary(ies)
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In this section we ask you to provide some information about the vocabulary or vocabularies you would like to be able to represent using SKOS.
Please note:
-- If you have multiple vocabularies to describe, you may repeat this section for each one individually or you may provide a single description that encompasses all of your vocabularies.
-- If your use case describes a generic application of one or more vocabularies and/or vocabulary mappings, you may skip this section.
-- If your vocabulary case contains cross-vocabulary links (between the vocabularies you presented or to external vocabularies), please fill in section 3!
2.1. What is the title of the vocabulary? If you're describing multiple vocabularies, please provide as many titles as you can.
2.2. Briefly describe the general characteristics of the vocabulary, e.g. scope, size...
2.3. In which language(s) is the vocabulary provided?
In the case of partial translations, how complete are these?
*2.4. Please provide below some extracts from the vocabulary. Use the layout or presentation format that you would normally provide for the users of the vocabulary. Please ensure that the extracts you provide illustrate all of the features of the vocabulary.
2.5. Describe the structure of the vocabulary.
What are the main building blocks?
What types of relationship are used? If you can, provide examples by referring to the extracts given in paragraph 2.4.
2.6. Is a machine-readable representation of the vocabulary already available (e.g. as an XML document)? If so, we would be grateful if you could provide some example data or point us to a hyperlink.
2.7. Are any software applications used to create and/or maintain the vocabulary?
Are there any features which these software applications currently lack which are required by your use case?
2.8. If a database application is used to store and/or manage the vocabulary, how is the database structured? Illustration by means of some table sample is welcome.
2.9. Were any published standards, textbooks or written guidelines followed during the design and construction of the vocabulary?
Did you decide to diverge from their recommendations in any way, and if so, how and why?
2.10. How are changes to the vocabulary managed?
2.11. Any additional information, references and/or hyperlinks.
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Section 3. Vocabulary Mappings
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In this section we ask you to provide some information about the mappings or links between vocabularies you would like to be able to represent using SKOS.
Please note:
-- If your use case does not involve vocabulary mappings or links, you may skip this section!
3.1. Which vocabularies are you linking/mapping from/to?
*3.2. Please provide below some extracts from the mappings or links between the vocabularies. Use the layout or presentation format that you would normally provide for the users of the mappings. Please ensure that the examples you provide illustrate all of the different types of mapping or link.
3.3. Describe the different types of mapping used, with reference to the examples given in paragraph 3.2.
3.4. Any additional information, references and/or hyperlinks.