|
Topic Maps are an ISO standard for the representation and interchange of knowledge, with an emphasis on the findability of information. The standard is formally known as ISO/IEC 13250:2003. Logo of the International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from national standards bodies. ...
Findability refers to the quality of being locatable or navigable. ...
A topic map can represent information using topics (representing any concept, from people, countries, and organizations to software modules, individual files, and events), associations (which represent the relationships between them), and occurrences (which represent relationships between topics and information resources relevant to them). They are thus similar to semantic networks and both concept and mind maps in many respects. In loose usage all those concepts are often used synonymously, though only topic maps are standardized. A semantic network is often used as a form of knowledge representation. ...
Concept mapping is a technique for visualizing the relationships between different concepts. ...
A mind map (or mind-map) is a diagram used for linking words and ideas to a central key word or idea. ...
 Image File history File links TopicMapKeyConcepts2. ...
Topics, associations, and occurrences can be typed, but the types must be defined by the creator of the topic maps, and is known as the ontology of the topic map. There are also additional features, such as merging and scope. The concept of merging and identity allows automated integration of topic maps from diverse sources into a coherent new topic map. It has been suggested that Upper Ontology (computer science) be merged into this article or section. ...
Dubbed "the GPS of the information universe", topic maps are also destined to provide powerful new ways of navigating large and interconnected corpora. In law a corpus (Latin: body) is a set, a collection of documents and sources. ...
Data format
Topic maps have a standard XML-based interchange syntax called XML Topic Maps (XTM, Specification), as well as a de facto standard API called Common Topic Map Application Programming Interface (TMAPI), and query and schema languages are being developed within ISO. The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages, capable of describing many different kinds of data. ...
API may refer to: In computing, application programming interface In petroleum industry, American Petroleum Institute In education, Academic Performance Index This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
The specification is summarized in the abstract as follows: "This specification provides a model and grammar for representing the structure of information resources used to define topics, and the associations (relationships) between topics. Names, resources, and relationships are said to be characteristics of abstract subjects, which are called topics. Topics have their characteristics within scopes: i.e. the limited contexts within which the names and resources are regarded as their name, resource, and relationship characteristics. One or more interrelated documents employing this grammar is called a topic map."
A format called linear topic map notation (LTM) serves as a kind of shorthand for writing topic maps in plain text editors. This is useful for writing short personal topic maps or exchange partial topic maps by email. The format can be converted to XTM.
There is another format called AsTMa which serves a similar purpose. When writing topic maps manually it is much more compact but as well has to be converted to XTM to be useful in applications.
See also Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a family of specifications for a metadata model that is often implemented as an application of XML. The RDF family of specifications is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). ...
The Semantic Web is a project that intends to create a universal medium for information exchange by giving meaning (semantics), in a manner understandable by machines, to the content of documents on the Web. ...
The Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a non-proprietary, object modeling and specification language used in software engineering. ...
References - Lutz Maicher and Jack Park: Charting the Topic Maps Research and Applications Landscape, Springer, ISBN 3540325271
- Jack Park and Sam Hunting: XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-74960-2 (in bibMap)
External links |
Feeds |
Contact