Draft Ideas on a Process to Design and Build the DFT Vocabulary Gary Berg-Cross Developed for DFT WG Session at 2 nd RDA Plenary Sept Washington DC Terms Synonyms Conceptual Model Concepts

Topical Outline Overview of Phased Plan Basic Ideas –Vocabularies and Concepts Start up, Requirements analysis and development of candidate list Vocabulary Analysis Process Vocabulary Design process Refinement Draft Vocabulary Publication and Review

Basic Ideas Term Definition Verbal designation (3.4.1) of a general concept in a specific subject field. (ISO :2000) NOTE: A term may contain symbols and can have variants, e.g. different forms of spelling. A Controlled Vocabulary (CV) is a consensus, standardized set of terms, including new ones, used to refer to concepts Terms are proxies for concepts within a conceptual system Standards (like ISO) emphasize principles of vocabulary control that guide their design and development. 1. Eliminate (conceptual) ambiguity 1.use principles for defining/describing concepts to which terms are assigned 2.show relations and structure to help understanding 2.Control synonyms - term equivalence –simple formulation as a synonym ring “mg/l” has synonym of “milligrams per liter” - both refer to a concept A “databank” is an obsolete synonym for ”database” (preferred term) 3.Establish relations among terms where appropriate 4.Consider and systematize the role of lexical modifiers (e.g. digital or data object) 5.Employ Guiding Principles… Data Object Digital Object Data Element Data Set digital record

Vocabulary, Concepts and Reality: (after Ogden and Richards) Name Reality Correspondence Understand Reality – Semantics starts with evidence What is the concept? Something we understand. Extant Work, Philosophy, Psych, Data Science Perspectives ….. This data collection is different than that a data set Maybe there is more than 1 type of Aggregation. ? Task- Regiment Language (assertions using controlled terms?) Dataset A dataset is a logically meaningful grouping of similar or related data. Dataset isa grouping Data in a dataset has relation Relation types- source or class of source, processing level, algorithms, topic, time period…….. A dataset isPartOf a dataset series…… A dataset series (according to ISO 19115, & 19114) is a collection of datasets sharing the same product specification… Objects > data Objects Vocabulary - Sets of terms used by groups of cognitive agents to represent & communicate about concepts. In a language syntax can relate symbolic designations/terms

Start up Activities Scope Needs to be practical & focused but useful to overall RDA effort. Implied by scope of current documents & cited work Input from RDA WGs Identify Core concepts and terms Growing list in current documents Gather definitions from sources and interested parties 3-4 examples discussed later at this session Implied concepts that may be needed to bridge differences Gather and discuss ideas/needs/interests from RDA WGs Understand a concept-vocabulary development process Employ Guiding Principles 1.Reuse Don’t re-invent Adapt existing standards, methods and vocabulary that are fit for purpose. Engage test and validate terms in the community relevant WGs and Communities of Practice (CoI/CoP) for analysis, design, production

Many international standards and other specifications ISO 704:2000 – Terminology – Principles and methods ISO :2000 – Terminology – Part 1: General vocabulary ISO/IEC :2003 – Metadata registries – Part 3: Metamodel & basic attributes ISO/IEC :2005 – Metadata registries – Part 6: Registration ISO/IEC 11404:2007 – General purpose datatypes ISO/IEC 19773:2011 – Metadata Modules Open Government Vocabularies – Content Model Open Government Vocabularies Working Group %2Fgld%2Fwiki%2Fimages%2F9%2F96%2FOpen_Government_Vocabualries_-_Content_Model_v02.doc Data Element: A logical, identifiable unit of data that forms the basic organizational component in a database. Usually a combination of characters or bytes referring to one separate piece of information. A data element may combine with one or more other data elements or digital objects to form a digital record.

A Start on Vocabulary Analysis Process Identify concepts and concept relations implied by collected terms; Analyze and model concept systems on the basis of identified concepts and concept relations that are used to understand a term and its referent; Establishing representations of concept systems through concept diagrams; Craft concept-oriented definitions as a concept base; Test arrangement in taxonomical class hierarchy(s) Add essential Properties/Attributes/slots to distinguish related concepts Link concepts via Relations…..etc. Associate a designated vocabulary term to each concept (in one or more languages); and, Document the vocabulary in an agreed upon form, perhaps starting as a structured glossary and support concept models Adapted liberally from ISO TC 37 Standards Basic Principles of Terminology

Vocabulary Design Process & Vocabulary Qualities Both analysis and design may employ conceptual modeling to capture the essential meaning and structure of the descriptions of the vocabulary. The product of this is some form of conceptual model. Desired Qualities 1.Adequate capture of content intuitions, expressed by domain experts, 1. in an understandable forms 2.includes details on constraining descriptions 3.Uses well defined relations, taxonomic and others 4.Illustrate with examples 2.Rigorous – stands up to rational analysis 3.Minimally redundant - no unintended synonyms

9 Vocabulary & Model Artifact Designed by Rigorous Method World Situations Data on a Wetlands Conceptualization starts to model (part of) the data world Expressed in a Communicative form Intended Model Fitting Conceptualization Our Vocabulary & Model Product Adapted liberally from Guarino’s 1998 Formal Ontology in Information Systems Vocabulary commits to certain relations say subtypes Subclass ….. A specific artifact designed to express the intended meaning of a (shared) Vocabulary Data World Situations Act of observing a phenomenon, with goal of producing an estimated property value. -OGC O &M model Observation Interaction

Simple Vocab Entry Example Data Object Type of: Abstract Object Sub-types: Data object, digital object,…… Definition: n computer science, an object is any entity that can be manipulated by the commands of a programming language, such as a value, variable, function, or data structure. (With the later introduction of object oriented programming the same word, "object", refers to a particular instance of a class) Definition 2: a Data Object is a dataset Equivalent terms (other languages)... Attributes…. Relations a data element isPartof Data Object…. Examples/Instances include: repository metadata, data models, databases, tables, views, files, entities, columns, data elements, and attributes. (Source

Refinement Informal Models DataReality Analysis to Understand Data Concepts Formal Models Natural Language…. Controlled Voc Scientific ” Models” (see above) Semantic Web formalisms Taxonomies. Taxonomies. RDF(S), RDF(S), OWL…. OWL…. Simplify more From Long-term Preservation for Spatial Data Infrastructures: a Metadata Framework and Geo-portal Implementation Community validation in necessary for standardization, but also Gradual Formalization

Vocabulary can be Built out in Stages –for example RDA Scope…. WG Scope Core Starter Set 9 months 12 months 6 months On 3 months

Draft vocabulary Publication and Review Products a reference document about DFT, Including a structured and well documented vocabulary including distinction of Preferred, Admitted, Deprecated, Obsolete terms Register the defined terms in an ISO-like concept registry so that everyone can easily refer to them Create an accompanying abstract data organization/conceptual model that may be also expressed graphically.

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Backup Slides

Organizing Relations – For Example Kinds of “Structure”

17 Add Relations Incrementally: Richer Schemata & Reusable Patterns Simple Feature-State Model (from GRAIL) becomes a richer schema DO, …. data element…. binary form Every DO is a type of Abstract Object described by metadata, has associated symbolic content may have parts data element

18 The semantic problem, "what is a data aggregation?" In statistics, aggregate data describes data combined from several measurements. When data are aggregated, groups of observations are replaced with summary statistics based on those observations like an average. In economics, aggregate data or data aggregates describes high-level data that is composed from a multitude or combination of other more individual data. But it could just be some type of merging of data and not integrated. One term - three concepts What does “Understanding” such things involve? –Terms & concepts (recognition, disambiguation via MEANING) –Conceptual structures (e.g., taxonomies, semantic relations) –Logical Inferences (e.g., generalize from broad concepts or specialize)

Terminological Services Common in medical realm

Controlled English tools

21 Understanding Why Data Is Structured as It Is Physical Object admin event Event Participates in Type Has Location Type Place Identified by Location code Object Entities are Related Meaningfully And “attributes” are Related Entities. Place Location code…. Place - Repository event Repository event Intersection Is an artifact to link tables tuples Have this static part Need this A deeper understanding of why the data values are what they are Processes …….