Transcript CMDI/ISOcat and Semantic Interoperability

CMDI/ISOcat
And
Semantic Operability
Ineke Schuurman
ISOcat content coördinator CLARIN-NL
Menzo Windhouwer
ISOcat system administrator
Utrecht 4-3-2014
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Uhhh?
“Give me a list with all forms of ‘wijf’ in 14th century
documents in Dutch by female authors, the same for
the 16th and 18th century. Contrast them with
documents by male authors and by unknown
authors. Present the results ordered per region and
per genre.”
• How to find data that could answer such a research
question?
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Metadata and machine
• Not ‘just by hand’ ► machine
• Subset selection ► metadata
Some problem(s):
• question not formulated in ‘Metadatish’
• What is clear for us is not clear for a machine
• What is meant by the concepts used (‘author’,
‘region’, ‘Dutch’)
• Several ‘definitions’ / ‘encoding schemes’ in use
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CLARIN
• Not one metadata scheme favored
• You may combine elements of several schemes
► “semantic interoperability” is to be ensured
– Is a ‘kopiist’ an author?
– What defines a ‘genre’, a ‘region’?
► May differ in various metadata schemes coming with
documents!
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Consequence
Within CLARIN, metadata concepts are to be
• defined
CMDI
ISOcat
other Concept Registries
• related
RELcat
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CMD Infrastructure
• Each CMD record contains some information to be
used for interoperability:
– Metadata header information
• Author
• Metadata profile used
• …
• Share profiles/components (structure and semantics)
• Still different profiles/components can also share
semantics by sharing concepts
– Main focus of this presentation
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ISOcat
ISOcat:
Data Category Registry defining widely
accepted data categories (DCs)
http://www.isocat.org
Registry that stores DCs for language resources
and their metadata, together with properties
of the DCs (definition, administration,
examples, etc.)
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ISOcat and CLARIN(-NL)
• ISOcat is used by CLARIN
– For defining metadata concepts in CMDI
• Focus of this tutorial
– For defining resource (content) concepts
• This has been the main focus of the ISOcat tutorial
– Ineke Schuurman is the CLARIN-NL ISOcat
content coordinator
• Guidelines (do’s and don’ts) for (reusing) DC
specifications
• Review and recommendation
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A good example
NEHOL project
• Alphabet (DC-4143)
– any set of characters representing the simple
sounds used in a language or in speech generally
In principle good because:
- No language / project dependency
- No tautology
- Reusable (not too strict)
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Some ‘rules’
•
•
Adopt an existing entry,
if not possible: create a new entry
In all cases: the entries should be GOOD ones
•
But: what makes an entry a good one, one
that you can (re)use?
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Do’s
• Create a DCS for your scheme (name project, annotation
scheme, …)
– Share your DCS with the CLARIN-NL/VL ISOcat group
• Not a member yet? Contact Ineke Schuurman to get an invitation
• Adopt DC’s where possible (see don’ts)
– Check ‘adopted’ DC’s regularly till standardization
• Use the Atom feed of your DCS
• Provide clear definition (short, to the point) for your scheme,
application, ….
– as general as possible, as specific as necessary
• Take care not to leave concepts used in your definition
undefined or vague
• Use appropriate profile (for CMDI: metadata)
• Use appropriate vocabulary (per profile)
• Keep track of relationships to existing DC’s
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Don’ts
•
•
•
•
•
Be (too) language specific in definition
Mention project/scheme in definition
Use several definitions in one DC
Circular definitions
Rely only on authority
Definition should fit YOUR purpose!
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Athens Core
• Use these DCs!
– We will take care of those definitions that are
• tautological
• too strict
•…
– When you spot DCs that are imperfect, let us
know!
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Obsolete/flagged DCs
• Try to avoid linking with ‘deprecated’ or
‘superseded’ DCs
– Can be needed for legacy data
• In other cases the flags show whether the DC
specification is correct from a purely technical
point of view
– Note that only DCs with a green marking are
qualified for recommendation
– Reuse might trigger the owner into fixing the DC
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CMDI and DC types
• A CMD component should map to a container
DC
• A CMD element/attribute should map to a
complex DC
• A CMD value should map to a simple DC
• The Component Registry enforces this
mapping in the ISOcat search dialogue
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CLARIN-NL
Thank you for your attention.
Any questions?
[email protected]
[email protected]
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