The document discusses IPTC's plans to publish their news codes and media codes as linked data on the semantic web. This includes converting their existing XML metadata into RDF using SKOS and Dublin Core vocabularies. They will link related concepts across datasets using URIs and RDF. This will allow connections between different but related pieces of data on the web. IPTC has already mapped some of their top-level subject codes to equivalent concepts in DBPedia and plans to engage the semantic web community for feedback on fully representing their codes and standards as linked data.

1. IPTC and The Semantic Web
Stuart Myles
Associated Press
3rd November 2010

2. IPTC’s Semantic Web Agenda
• IPTC news codes and media codes as
Linked Data
• Metadata in HTML
• RDFa and microformats for news
• A news ontology
Both Upper Case and lower case semweb
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3. Semantic Web and Linked Data
http://bnode.org/media/2009/07/08/semantic_web_technology_stack.png

4. IPTC Linked Data
• Turn IPTC subject codes into Linked Data
– Connect related data across the web using URIs, HTTP & RDF
– A set of principles from Tim Berners Lee
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
• Use URIs as names for things
• Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names.
• When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using
the standards (RDF, SPARQL)
• Include links to other URIs, so that they can discover more things
• Apply the principles to IPTC’s subject codes
– Already published as XML (G2 Knowledge Items)
– And as HTML
– The plan: convert XML into RDF, using SKOS and DC
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5. TLAs and FLAs:
AKA RDF? SKOS? DC?
• RDF is a single model - Subject Predicate Object
• With multiple syntaxes
– We selected RDF/XML and RDF/Turtle
• And multiple “vocabularies”
– Such as SKOS, Dublin Core
• SKOS = Simple Knowledge Organization System
– http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/
– Designed for representing thesauri and classification schemes
• The Semantic Web “way” is
– Use existing vocabularies as much as possible
– When you invent a new term, link it to existing terms
• We decided to use SKOS and DC as the main vocabs
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6. Mapping IPTC Codes to RDF
• In general, IPTC KnowledgeItems map well to RDF
– SKOS concepts
– Dublin Core properties
• Certain KI properties don’t have a direct mapping
– Created and updated timestamps of KnowledgeItem properties
• Difficult to determine more advanced mappings
– SKOS wiki had some documentation
http://esw.w3.org/SkosCoreGuideToc/SectionVersioning
– SKOS email list seems dormant
– SemanticOverflow a great way to get questions answered
http://www.semanticoverflow.com/questions/902/adding-created-
modified-properties-to-skos-do-i-need-to-reify
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7. Linking from IPTC Codes
to Other Schemes
“Include links to other URIs, so that they can discover more things”
• Linking is the heart of linked data
• But linking is more like mapping
– owl:sameas seems to have unintended consequences
– SKOS’s mapping properties offer a range of options
• closeMatch, exactMatch, broadMatch, narrowMatch, relatedMatch
• http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-reference/#mapping
• We decided to map the 17 top level IPTC subject codes
to DBPedia
– Some top level terms are really “umbrella” terms – difficult to
map to a single equivalent
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8. IPTC Linked Data
• Demonstration of the Linked Data versions of IPTC
News Codes
• Discussion of Proposed IPTC/MINDS Linked Data
project
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9. IPTC and Linked Data:
Next Steps
• Request a more complete Linked Data mapping of IPTC
Subject Codes and Media Topics
• Reach out to the broader Semantic Web and news
communities for feedback and collaboration
• Participate with MINDS on the potential of Linked Data
for the news business
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