Classification and the

semantic web
Classification studies
Today’s lesson falls in to parts

• Part 1: Classification

• Part 2: Knowledge represetation and the semantic web

Part 1
What we have discussed so far
With the information concept as case – we have discussed different views on how to categorize the information
concept:

• How to classify information –

• Objective subjective social
• Descriptive interpretive community
• Truth satisfaction purpose
• Observation experiencenorm and goals

• Paradigms in information science

• Information processing paradigm
• The cognitive paradigm
• The social constructivist paradigm

• Phenomenology and semiotic view

• Non-reductionist and non dichotomic view
What have we learned from this discussion?
From theory to practice
• Knowing that concepts always are defined from an epistemological
perspective – and that theoretical assumptions are inherenly part of any
knowledge organization systems, we will now turn our focus towards
knowledge organization systems (KOS)

• Better equipped to understand the mechanisms related to:

• how concepts are determined and delimited,
• how concepts are organized,
• how users information behavior is motivated,
• how information needs are understood,
• how information and knowledge is related and discussed
Terminology
• KO – knowledge organization (generel concept)
• KOS – knowledge organization systems (LIS term)
• Term lists, classification systems, thesauri –
• Ontologies – concept hierarchies with specified semantic relations
• KR – knowledge representation (computer science term)

Source: Wikipedia
Knowledge representation and knowledge
organization systems
• KOS
• Indexing, classification, library systems, collections, documentation
• Focus on representation systems – terminology and concepts, relationships between concepts,
representation of documents, co-location of collection items, documents, etc.
• User communities
• Domains, discourse comunities, universe of discourses
• Social organization, purpusful representation, information behavior, use of knowledge, language for
special purposes (LSP), knowledge interests and relevanse studies.
• KR
• Provides for a set of ontological commitments – expresses concept relations in terms of
formal logic. Focus on ‘grammar’ the formal structure of the system (information processing)
Level of compelexity
Priority to rational structure

Intension / specification
Increased formal structure

User-centered non-controlled
Priority to empirical clustering
Extension / scope
Breath and depth of KOS
 Systematic classification

Classification in broarder sense would be language and especially substantives that labels experienced phenomena
Concepts and conceptualization
Overvie
w of
KOS #1
Overview of KOS #2

Source: Thellefsen (2010)

Indexing documents
• Appropriate representation model
• Domain oriented classification or thesaurus
• Collection of documents
• Books, articles, patents
• Anyting that carries a message or can be seen as information (art, artefacts,
images, videos, music, games, etc.)
Definition of a document
Classification – focus on subject and
document

• Decimal classification system (primarily document/colocation focus)

• E.g. Dewey

• Facetted classification (primarily concept/subject focus)

• Colon
• Bliss
Thesaurus – focus on concept and
terminology
Thesaurus example
Bilingual thesaurus (translations)
Summary

• Classification systems has various levels of complexity, and serves

different purposes.
• Some classification systems are highly specialized and focused on
particular fields of study – e.g. biology, other are more generally
focused on e.g. on documents in a library collection.
• Classification systems may be motivated by different agendas and
imply epistemological assumptions
Part 2
The semantic web

•
• Web of data rather than a web of documents
World wide web

• HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language

• Allowing documents to be linked to other documents

• URL: Uniform Ressource Locator (https://www.ku.dk)

• A unique location for each document

• HTTP(S): Hypertext Transfer Protocol (Secure)

• Rules to alow documents to be linkeded together across the Internet
 Web of documents

Linked documents

URL – every document has a uniform Ressource Locator

The semantic web

• Unlocking the potential of the web

• Linking data and the relationships between data

• A web og data rather than a web of documents

 Web of data

Linked data and relationships

URI Uniform Ressource Identifier

- Every thing has a URI
- URI is the basis for linked data
- Every thing with an URI can be linked to things with URI
FRBR

Kilde: IFLA, 1998

FRBR
RDFS:FRBR

Source: Gradmann, (2005)

Semantic layer stack model
Tim Berner—Lee’s vision of the semantic web

RDF: Ressource Description Framework

REFS: Ressource Description Framework Scheme

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web_Stack for further information and web sources

 Markup language
HTML: Hypertext markup language • XML: Extended Martkup Language
Predefined makup language • Add data structure and
Design of web pages metadata to text (tags)
Web 2.0 - the social web

• How the social media alters the information enviroment

• New communication structures

• Accessibility of information
• Platform independency
• New document genres e.g. wikies, blogs, social media, folksonomies
The social web

• Characterized by user participation

• Blogs (individual) and wikis (collaborative)
• Tagging and user tagging
• Social media, linking some one or some thing
• Users are data
• Big data
• Folksonomy
Next Internet – web 3.0?

• The Cloud
• Big Data
• Internet of Things
Big data - volume
Big data – the V’s
Internet of things (IoT)
References
• Gradmann, S. (2005). Rdfs:Frbr-Towards an Implementation Model for
Library Catalogs Using Semantic Web Technology. Cataloging &
Classification Quarterly, 39(3), 63-75. 
• FLA. (1998). Functional requirements for bibliographical records. Final
report (Vol. 18). München: K. G. Saur.
• Thellefsen M (2010) Knowledge Organization, Concepts, Signs : A
Semeiotic Framework. Royal School of Library and Information Science,
Aalborg.
• Weller K (2010) Knowledge and Information : Knowledge Representation
in the Social Semantic Web. Berlin, DEU: Walter de Gruyter.