Introduction Abstract Towards knowledge organization with To

Introduction Abstract Towards knowledge organization with Topic Maps

Towards knowledge organization with Topic Maps

Alexander Sigel M.A.

Informationszentrum Sozialwissenschaften,Bonn,Germany

sigel@bonn.iz-soz.de

http://index.bonn.iz-soz.de/~sigel/

Abstract:

The exciting Topic Maps(TMs)are an ideal catalyst for mutual learning experiences for proponents

from the partially overlapping communities of Knowledge Organization(KO),Knowledge Manage-

ment(KM)and Information Technology(IT).A long-term goal would be a tutorial white paper on the

relationship between KO,KM and TMs,together with free reference software.KO is interested in opti-

mizing the organization(the conceptual access structure)of knowledge repositories to support easier

retrieval,creation and sharing of knowledge for user communities.TMs can indeed play an important

role within KO:Together with related technologies,they have made it easier to provide innovative KO

services.With TMs you can de?ne arbitrarily complex knowledge structures and attribute them as

metadata to information resources.Decentrally creating,maintaining and exchanging even more

heterogeneous metadata is a powerful basic service of high interest for a broad range of applications.

However,sooner or later you have to cope with the new semantic heterogeneity and come up with

strategies to achieve better semantic interoperability.How could TM-based services alleviate the

pressing KO problem of how to reorganize,enhance and semantically integrate heterogeneous subject

data?Dedicated to this question,this talk takes a KO perspective:By sketching three typical scenarios

in which heterogeneous metadata occur,it shows how classical KO challenges reappear with TMs,but

also that TMs may be of value.Because the authors of the TM standard were right in not prescribing

the application semantics of the structured link network,the widespread use of large-scale TMs will

aggravate the well-known problem of the comparability and compatibility of KO schemata.A closer

co-operation between the communities could aid the potential of TMs for KO/KM.Fortunately,the TM

community has already started the fruitful exchange by discussing KO-relevant topics.Because of the

?exible orientation of TMs towards usage contexts,especially user-oriented indexing should bene?t

from TMs.Approaches for achieving semantic interoperability within a layered model of decentral

information provision are brie?y presented as background against which further directions of KO with

TMs can be discussed.One consequence for KO is that its methodology must be partially redesigned

to take collaborative knowledge building activities on distributed resources more into consideration.

This article also asks about the relationship between TMs and other means to computationally handle

semantics in next-generation ontology-and agent-based knowledge services.In the end,possible

further research towards this vision is suggested.

Introduction

Browsing through the advance material of the Metastructures1999conference,I stumbled across TMs (Topic Maps)and immediately got hooked.My background in information science and conceptual knowledge organization made me,of course,wonder about the potential of this technology for KO (Knowledge Organization)and KM(Knowledge Management).After all,KO is much about knowledge structures and their interrelations,and TMs promise to provide a standardized technical means to build and share such.Naturally,I wanted to learn more and to discuss implications with my KO colleagues after having read all the TM material I could get hold of.

However,at that time none of them had even heard about the TM standard,despite its long history. Consequently,my request for discussion initiated no response.This is probably just another instance of the widespread phenomenon of separated communities.What are some of the obstacles in this case?First, it always takes some time for an innovation to diffuse to other?elds.Second,the TM(Topic Map)standard

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Introduction Abstract Towards knowledge organization with Topic Maps

is not really intended to be read and understood by scholars of the humanities.Third,differing terminology is most hindering(cf.e.g."facets").Forth,there existed no tutorial material that was excellent,affordable and easily available.Furthermore,no large-scale real-world applications and examples could be reviewed.

(I want to add:In spite of the rising marketing hype,there is still much room for improvement).

To overcome this situation,I imagine an interdisciplinary team working towards a high-quality white paper on the relationship between KO/KM and TMs(working title:"How to manage knowledge with TMs").It may eventually evolve into a tutorial booklet.In my opinion,it should:

shortly set the necessary background on KO/KM,

present the basic idea,possibilities and shortcomings of TMs and how they?t into this background, identify perse KO/KMareas in which TMs could be or have been successfully applied(ideally illustrated by some success stories and business opportunities),

guide through the process(e.g.the analysis of user information needs,the semantic(ontological) modelling of controlled vocabulary,the design of the TM types,typical usage and problems).

develop one complex,continuous example,

explain the essential technical jargon and the implicit suppositions as clear as possible,and

have a kind of cookbook part which maps from a problem or question to technical advice in recipe form.

Moreover,we need more free reference software like’tmproc:A Topic Maps implementation(in Python).

I am strongly convinced that the availability of such open source tools will increase th …… 此处隐藏：38751字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……