The Vocabulary Mapping Framework and its potential for

The Vocabulary Mapping Framework and its potential for improving metadata interoperability in the Semantic Web. Gordon Dunsire Presented to the EUROVOC Conference, 18 -19 November 2010, Luxembourg

Vocabulary Mapping Framework v. Funded by UK’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) v. Only first stage funded v. Major expansion of the RDA/ONIX framework for resource categorization v. To create a tool to support the automated mapping of vocabularies from metadata standards of use to the JISC community v. Research, teaching, learning environments v. Project conducted during second half of 2009

VMF requirements v. VMF goal is to automatically compute the “best fit” mappings between any two pre-defined vocabularies v. Scalable and extensible to accommodate new and changing vocabularies v. Flexible to allow engagement by different communities in various stages of vocabulary development and mapping v. Non-prescriptive to encourage uptake v. And allow use beyond VMF (and RDF) environment

VMF vocabularies v FRAD, FRBR, MARC 21, RDA (libraries) v ONIX (book/serials publishing) v DDEX (recorded music) v Dublin Core (web metadata) v LOM SCORM (education) v DOI (any content) v CIDOC CRM (museums and archives) v MPEG 21 RDD (digital rights) v RDA ONIX Framework (libraries and publishing) v. Focus on Resource and Party (Agent) categories and relators between them v. Increasing use of relators instead of attributes

VMF data model v. Based on the Contextual ontology architecture (COA) model developed by Rightscom, the leader of the VMF project v. Terms are mapped into an ontology (the VMF matrix) built up from “families” of concepts based on verbs v. Concept families provide all possible points (“nodes”) to which terms might be mapped. v. Nodes are generated automatically

Concept family v Accommodates terms for roles, bi-directional relator pairs, uni-directional relators (properties), classes and attributes v FRBR class “Choreography” vvmf: Choreographed. Dance v RDA role “choreographer” vvmf: Choreographed. Dance_Dance. Choreographer v RDA/ONIX attribute “language” vvmf: Lexical. Work v DDEX role “Author” vvmf: Lexical. Work_Writer

Mapping to the matrix Every term in a vocabulary is given an equivalent term in a VMF concept family… vmf: Words. Creator vmf: Adaptor vmf: Words. Adaptor onix: Translated by vmf: Commentator ddex: Translator vmf: Subtitles. Translator Ddex: Subtitles. Translator vmf: Translator. And. Commentator onix: Translated with commentary by From: Godfrey Rust (Rightscom) – How the VMF matrix works, Nov 2009

Mapping scheme to scheme vmf: Words. Creator Queries can then be used to find the “best fit” mappings between two terms or complete vocabularies. vmf: Adaptor vmf: Words. Adaptor vmf: Commentator ddex: Translator onix: Translated by vmf: Translator vmf: Subtitles. Translator ddex: Subtitles. Translator vmf: Translator. And. Commentator onix: Translated with commentary by From: Godfrey Rust (Rightscom) – How the VMF matrix works, Nov 2009

Mapping scheme to scheme vmf: Words. Creator Queries can then be used to find the “best fit” mappings between two terms or complete vocabularies. vmf: Adaptor vmf: Words. Adaptor onix: Translated by vmf: Commentator ddex: Translator vmf: Subtitles. Translator Ddex: Subtitles. Translator vmf: Translator. And. Commentator onix: Translated with commentary by From: Godfrey Rust (Rightscom) – How the VMF matrix works, Nov 2009

VMF matrix v Available (some constraints) from: vhttp: //cdlr. strath. ac. uk/VMF/documents. htm v Contains approximately: v 10 schemes v 53 vocabularies mapped in whole or part v 500+ concept families v 8000+ unique terms v 30, 000+ RDF triples v RDF triples in TTL format v. With or without sample vocabulary mappings v Some documentation also available

Applications v. Metadata cross-walks v. Between different vocabularies v. E. g. Publisher metadata (ONIX) and library metadata (RDA) v. Mapping of local, bespoke metadata schemes v. From local scheme to global framework v. Local metadata often specialised, specific, and unique

VMF and Eurovoc roles literary profession UF author poet writer vmf: Work_Creator. Of. Work artistic profession UF actor artist composer cultural worker dancer film-maker musician painter photographer sculptor singer vmf: Conceiver_Concept

Beyond roles v. Rightscom believes the VMF matrix approach can be extended to cover all kinds of topic v. Not just roles v. Hub-and-spoke architecture v. High-Level Thesaurus (HILT) project used Dewey Decimal Classification as hub v. And others v. E. g. Soergel proposes faceted classification hub v. Topic clusters = concept families?

Thank you vgordon@gordondunsire. com vhttp: //cdlr. strath. ac. uk/vmf/