[topicmapmail] Subject Identifiers metadata

[Murray Altheim]

Dan Corwin wrote:
> Hi Kal -
> 
> 
>>Can you give an example of the need to reify the topic?
> 
> 
> Sure.  I can imagine whole classes of topic maps that try to describe
> good or bad modeling techniques - just as this thread does on a "best
> practices" issue.  And which therefore would need to reify specific
> topics as examples, then add characteristics saying that they were
> good or bad illustrations of technique, and explaining why.  Any
> "basic training manual" topic map on the Topic Map paradigm might
> need similar examples of topics.
> 
> Tom suggests PSIs are an answer; for the above they might work.  But
> I think "versioning" or DC-type metadata would be useful for topics
> in any ontology, or in any dynamic TM being built collaboratively by
> a group (such as in a wiki).  Characteristics assigned by reviewers,
> Q/A staff, etc. might also be attached, not to model the subject of
> the topic, but how well it was built.  And here, PSIs seem unlikely.
[...]

Dan,

I both agree and disagree with you. :-) I'm using PSIs, but I'm
using a set of "PSIs" (i.e., URIs) defined by the Dublin Core for
the purposes you outline, such as creator, version, various time-
stamps, etc.  I just submitted a conference paper based on a "spec"
written by myself and Sean Palmer (which we plan to update later
this year) that combines DC metadata and XHTML [1]. The paper and
current spec don't yet outline in detail the use I've been making
of DC metadata in XTM, but suffice it to say that DC now pervades
much of my application and future versions of the spec will go into
greater depth elucidating this. I've reified each of the DCMES
elements as Topics, with their subjects the original DC URIs. The
DC semantics were developed to manage resources, and this discussion
sounds to me like managing Topics as resources, so the modeling is
pretty straightforward.

If anyone would benefit from me distributing the DC-in-XTM PSIs, I
can do that.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .

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