Draft
Requirements for OASIS Topic Maps Published Subjects TC
This
version : November 5, 2001
Status of this document :
The content of this page is only informative and should not be used or
referred to otherwise.
Please send any comments to Bernard
Vatant
1. Statement
of Purpose
Whereas
most other semantic specifications and languages are resource-centered,
Topic Maps are subject-centered. Since every Topic in a Topic Map should
be a formal representation of an unique and non-ambiguous subject (abstract
or concrete), consistency and efficient interchange of Topic Maps must
rely on efficient, non-ambiguous and trustable process for definition
and usage of subjects' identity.
Neither ISO 13250 nor XTM 1.0 provide Topic Maps authors, managers and
users with any concrete hint of what that process should be, excepted
the general recommendation to refer to authoritative Published Subjects.
The purpose of OASIS Topic Maps Published Subjects Technical Committee
is to promote efficient use of Published Subjects by specifying recommendations,
requirements and best practices, for their definition, management and
application.
It should also provide efficient use cases based on those recommendations.
2.
Recommendation for Published Subjects Definition
The
TC will recommend a standard definition (grammar and syntax) for Published
Subjects, allowing both human users and topic maps engines, or any other
kind of intelligent agents, to identify and use in a non-ambiguous way
the elements capturing subject identity and context of publication and
use.
This should
include at least a formal declaration of Published Subject, name(s), description(s),
publication context (publisher, creator, update ...), intended scope of
use and/or community of users.
As
far as possible, the recommendation should be consistent with and/or use
related standards such as RDF description and Dublin Core elements, and
generally state-of-the-art metadata standards.
Some open issues:
- The recommended
syntax should certainly at least be specified in XML ...
Should it be written in XTM or use XTM element,
or use a specific DTD or schema?
- Given that Published
Subjects will most of the time set in repositories ...
Should the recommendation extend to the structure
of repositories, relationships between Subjects such as classifications
and/or other kind of associations?
- Given that Published
Subjects are to be permanently available on-line ...
Should the recommendation define a standard namespace
structure?
3.
Recommendation for Published Subjects Management Authority
The
TC will recommend a general methodology for Published Subjects Management.
That should include at least:
- Requirements for
stability of URIs
- Permanent visibility
and availability of publishing authority
- Transparency of
IPR status and security requirements
- Liaison and consistency
between repositories in the same scope, and with state-of-the-art standards
- Requirements on
process of validation and update
- Versioning, including
backward compatibility with ancient versions
4.
Recommendation for Published Subjects Applications and Users
"Published
Subjects Applications and Users" include the non-exhaustive following
list.
Note
that even if TC recommendations focus mainly on Topic Maps applications,
they are not restrictive to those.
They assume that many other agents and applications will take advantage
of, and use efficiently, Published Subjects.
- Semantic Web Agents
(Topic Maps engines and parsers, intelligent agents, spiders, search
engines ...)
Those agents will use Published Subjects to control subject identity,
merge, bind, or process Topic Maps in any relevant way, on the basis
of the identity they provide.
- Topic Maps authors
(either human or any kind of software)
They will use Published Subjects to identify Topics when creating, updating
and modifying Topic Maps.
- Authors of Ontologies,
Thesaurus, and generally speaking all Classification and Indexing tools.
The TC will recommend
best practices for those applications and users, including:
- Consistent technical
use of Published Subjects inside Topic Maps and other applications
- Consistency of
Published Subjects usage with the scope intended by Publishers
- Respect of IPR
as intended and declared by Publishers
- Registration of
users by the Publishers, whenever it is relevant and useful for the
community of users
- And more generally,
any relevant term of contract between Publishers and Users
5. Use Cases -
Registries Management under TC authority
The TC will "eat
its own dog food", by building use cases of its own recommendations,
that could include:
- Registries of Generic
Published Subjects, e.g. languages, countries, generic relationships
and associations widely used in classifications and ontologies.
- Registries managed
by Subcommittees devoted to specific industry fields, e.g. XML industry,
Agriculture and Food.
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