Information cooperation using knowledge organisation systems
Through the development of a semantic web, a common framework has been developed that allows data to be shared and reused across applications removing the boundaries of the traditional web. This is a collaborative effort led by W3C with participation from a large number of partners. The results are based on the Resource Description Framework (RDF), which integrates a variety of applications using XML for syntax and URIs for naming. Simple Knowledge Organisation Systems (SKOS) is an area of work developing specifications and standards to support the use of knowledge organisation systems (KOS) within the framework of the semantic web. The RDF vocabulary developed to express the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, terminologies, glossaries and other types of controlled vocabulary is SKOS Core. Since these are in RDF format, they can be manipulated, transformed, stored and searched using the RDF tools from public domains. Thus SKOS can be used as an interchange format throughout the digital libraries and for data retrieval In addition, interaction with other tools and representations used throughout the semantic web is possible. Guidelines have also been established to allow the conversion of digital concept schemes in other formats into SKOS. The developed SKOS system is going through the W3C standardisation process in order to become W3C recommended. A prototype has been developed which is available for testing. After further development, it is hoped that the completed product will be made available to the public free of charge.
