Skip to content Specifications & Documentation
Page Contents
All comments are welcome on the following recommendations and may be sent to public-esw-thes@w3.org; please include the text "SKOS comment" in the subject line. All messages received at this address are viewable in a public archive.
See also Tutorials, Presentations & Papers and Translations.
Recommendation
The following document is at the Recommendation stage of the W3C Recommendation Track process.
- SKOS Reference
W3C Recommendation 18 August 2009. Alistair Miles and Sean Bechhofer eds. [news release, errata]This document defines the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), a common data model for sharing and linking knowledge organization systems via the Web.
Many knowledge organization systems, such as thesauri, taxonomies, classification schemes and subject heading systems, share a similar structure, and are used in similar applications. SKOS captures much of this similarity and makes it explicit, to enable data and technology sharing across diverse applications.
The SKOS data model provides a standard, low-cost migration path for porting existing knowledge organization systems to the Semantic Web. SKOS also provides a light weight, intuitive language for developing and sharing new knowledge organization systems. It may be used on its own, or in combination with formal knowledge representation languages such as the Web Ontology language (OWL).
This document is the normative specification of the Simple Knowledge Organization System. It is intended for readers who are involved in the design and implementation of information systems, and who already have a good understanding of Semantic Web technology, especially RDF and OWL.
For an informative guide to using SKOS, see the SKOS Primer.
Working Group Notes
The following documents have W3C Working Group Note status.
- SKOS Primer
W3C Working Group Note 18 August 2009. Antoine Isaac and Ed Summers eds. [news release]SKOS—Simple Knowledge Organization System—provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes such as thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, folksonomies, and other similar types of controlled vocabulary. As an application of the Resource Description Framework (RDF), SKOS allows concepts to be composed and published on the World Wide Web, linked with data on the Web and integrated into other concept schemes.
This document is a user guide for those who would like to represent their concept scheme using SKOS.
In basic SKOS, conceptual resources (concepts) are identified with URIs, labelled with strings in one or more natural languages, documented with various types of note, semantically related to each other in informal hierarchies and association networks, and aggregated into concept schemes.
In advanced SKOS, conceptual resources can be mapped across concept schemes and grouped into labelled or ordered collections. Relationships between concept labels can be specified. Finally, the SKOS vocabulary itself can be extended to suit the needs of particular communities of practice or combined with other modelling vocabularies.
This document is a companion to the SKOS Reference, which gives the normative reference on SKOS.
- SKOS Use Cases and Requirements
W3C Working Group Note 18 August 2009. Antoine Isaac, Jon Phipps, Daniel Rubin eds. [news release]Knowledge organization systems, such as taxonomies, thesauri or subject heading lists, play a fundamental role in information structuring and access. The Semantic Web Deployment Working Group aims at providing a model for representing such vocabularies on the Semantic Web: SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System).
This document presents the preparatory work for the 2009 version of SKOS. It lists representative use cases, which were obtained after a dedicated questionnaire was sent to a wide audience. It also features a set of fundamental or secondary requirements derived from these use cases, that have been used to guide the design of SKOS.
This document is a companion to the SKOS Reference and the SKOS Primer, which respectively provide the normative reference on SKOS and a user guide for those who would like to represent their concept scheme using SKOS.
Other Working Drafts
The following documents have W3C Working Draft status, which means they have been reviewed by a W3C Working Group prior to publication.
- SKOS Core Guide (This document has been superseded)
2nd W3C Public Working Draft 2 November 2005. Alistair Miles and Dan Brickley eds. [news release]This document is a guide using the SKOS Core Vocabulary, for readers who already have a basic understanding of RDF concepts. It is the authoritative guide to recommended usage of the SKOS Core Vocabulary at the time of publication.
- SKOS Core Vocabulary Specification (This document has been superseded)
2nd W3C Public Working Draft 2 November 2005. Alistair Miles and Dan Brickley eds. [news release]This document gives a reference-style overview of the SKOS Core Vocabulary as it stands at the time of publication. It is the authoritative human-readable account of the SKOS Core Vocabulary at the time of publication. It also describes the policies for ownership, naming, persistence and change by which the SKOS Core Vocabulary is managed.
- Quick
Guide to Publishing a Thesaurus on the Semantic Web (This document has been superseded)
W3C Working Draft 17 May 2005. Alistair Miles ed.This document describes in brief how to express the content and structure of a thesaurus, and metadata about a thesaurus, in RDF.
