*Bernd Ritschel1, Günther Neher2, Toshihiko Iyemori3, Yasuhiro Murayama4
(1.None, 2.University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, 3.Data Analysis Center for Geomagnetism and Space Magnetism, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, 4.National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, Japan)
Keywords:Metadata Standard, Keyword Vocabulary, Terminological Ontology, Matching Ontologies, Vocabulary Broker, Open Science
Keyword vocabularies as part of metadata standards, such as NASA GCMD DIF, SPASE data model, ESPAS keyword ontology or UAT thesaurus are used to tag and qualify specific metadata elements in a standardised way. The different concepts behind the used keywords transport specific semantic knowledge about features of the tagged elements. The scope and the validity of the concepts and keywords normally is limited to a specific domain, such as earth and space physics or astronomy. Natural language is used to express the semantic of the concepts and appropriate keywords. Therefore diverse keywords are used in different metadata standards to express same or very similar concepts. Even in the same domain different keywords are used to describe the same concept. Out of that there is the problem using keywords for the search of data within different repositories. In order to overcome this challenge, we have developed a semantic Web based Vocabulary Broker framework which is connecting appropriate keywords mainly using "skos:closeMatch" relationships for the expression of concordances. Terminological ontologies derived from the above mentioned metadata standards are processed, and semantic based keyword matches are generated. The original ontology and the mapped parts are managed by the Open Semantic Framework (OSF). The Vocabulary Broker application provides both, schema based browsing and keyword search features. The main idea of the Vocabulary Broker, the semantic (Web) based mashup of keywords, prepares the way for a seamless and overlapping data search within different data repositories, which are managed by different metadata standards. This idea works within a domain or even cross-domain. Therefore our approach is a valuable contribution to mashup data and knowledge within an Open Science environment.
Vocabulary Broker URL: http://wdcosf.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp