Re: [tm-pubsubj-comment] ISSUE 10 - PSIs "name" "subject" and"description"

[Steve Pepper <pepper@ontopia.net>]

Lots of things here. Let's see if I can disentangle myself.

At 16:01 24/04/02 +0000, Murray Altheim wrote:
>You hit it on the nose. The PSI is in *topic map terms*. The only
>reason to use Dublin Core at all is to hook into the DC semantics,
>to allow non-TM tools a chance to play in the TM sandbox.

I agree in principle that we should hook into the DC semantics as much as 
possible, but I don't yet have a clear idea exactly how that might be 
leveraged in practice. I think I need concrete examples.

> From the DC element "subject":
> >  Name:        Subject and Keywords
> >  Identifier:  Subject
> >  Definition:  The topic of the content of the resource.
> >  Comment:     Typically, a Subject will be expressed as keywords,
> >               key phrases or classification codes that describe a topic
> >               of the resource.
> >               Recommended best practice is to select a value from a
> >               controlled vocabulary or formal classification scheme.
>                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>The key here is "controlled vocabulary." If we're defining things
>in a PSI set, it might be a good idea to connect it via an existing
>controlled vocabulary, such as one found in a library system. Any
>tools that are DC element set aware would "understand" the dc:subject
>as such and process accordingly. It seems a shame to go to all the
>trouble to make XTM/PSI sets ISO 11179 compliant and then leave out
>dc:subject. Or maybe I'm getting this all wrong.

To be honest I didn't know we were going to "all the trouble to make 
XTM/PSI sets ISO 11179 compliant". I know next to nothing about ISO 11179 
(probably shouldn't admit that in public :) It's not that I doubt you're 
right, but could you explain?

However, that's a side issue. My real problem is that I simply don't 
understand how you think we would use dc:subject. That's why I asked what a 
typical value might be.

Let me try and make it easier for you to help me. In the following example 
of a piece of text used as a PSI and employing DC semantics, what might go 
in the spot marked "*****"?

   Title:        Norway
   Description:  Country in the Scandinavian peninsula bordering
                 on Sweden, Finland, and Russia.
   Identifier:   http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/country.xtm#no
   Subject:      *****

>Now, OTOH, I did a preliminary PSI set for DC last year (I think it
>is included in that pile of stuff I posted to this group) which
>created PSIs for each of the DC elements. Then, an author could
>scope a base name with the dc:subject PSI. That's how I'd planned
>to use it, though there certainly may be better ways.

Well, that's fine, but now you're talking about the author of a topic map, 
right, not the author (or publisher) of a PSI set, most of whom probably 
*won't* use topic maps to express the PSI set. It leads back to the same 
question: What are the semantics (or purpose) of a dc:subject property 
attached to a PSI?

Steve

--
Steve Pepper, Chief Executive Officer <pepper@ontopia.net>
Convenor, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34/WG3  Editor, XTM (XML Topic Maps)
Ontopia AS, Waldemar Thranes gt. 98, N-0175 Oslo, Norway.
http://www.ontopia.net/ phone: +47-23233080 GSM: +47-90827246