This talk was given at SEMANTiCS 2014 in Leipzig. It gives an overview how to develop an enterprise linked data strategy around controlled vocabularies based on SKOS. It discusses how knowledge graphs based on SKOS can extended step by step due to the needs of the organization.

1. SKOS as the focal point
of linked data strategies
Andreas Blumauer, MSc IT

2. About Semantic Web Company (SWC)
SWC was founded 2001 in Vienna, Austria
Over 20 experts in linked data technologies
Product: PoolParty Semantic Platform
Serving customers from three continents
EU- & US-based partner network

3. Our network: Customers & Partners
Finance / Automotive / Publisher / Health Care / Public Administration / Energy / Education
Customers
● Credit Suisse
● Daimler
● Roche
● Wolters Kluwer
● Tieto
● Red Bull Media House
● World Bank Group
● The Pokémon Company
● Healthdirect Australia
● Ministry of Finance (A)
● Council of the E.U.
● TC Media
● American Physical Society
● Education Services Australia
● Wood Mackenzie
● Pearson
● Geological Survey (A)
● Norwegian Direct. of Immigration
● REEEP
● GBPN - Global Buildings
Performance Network
● ...
Partners
● Cognizant
● EPAM Systems
● iQuest
● DTI AG
● Tenforce
● OpenLink Software
● Ontotext
● Gravity Zero
● Altotech
● Wolters Kluwer
● Term Management
● Taxonomy Strategies
● Search explained
● WAND
● Linked Data Factory
● Taxonic
● semweb
● Digirati
● KMSolutions

4. FAQs: How enterprises dive deeper into
linked data technologies & methodologies
1. What is linked data?
2. How do we benefit from it?
What are the use cases for linked data?
3. Will it replace our existing systems,
e.g. enterprise search?
4. Can we reuse existing metadata, glossaries, schemes &
vocabularies?
5. How can we integrate linked data into our DMS, CMS, …
6. Where should we start?

5. 1. What is Linked Data?
An enterprise perspective

6. Graphs everywhere...
Microsoft
Facebook
Google

7. Things are the key elements of graphs
which open the doors to ‘smart data’
It’s all about
things,
not strings!

8. Add relations between things and
link them with other knowledge graphs
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http://musicbrainz.org/artist/1036b808-f58c-4a3e-b461-a2c4492ecf1b
https://twitter.com/nickiminaj
http://open.spotify.com/artist/0hCNtLu0JehylgoiP8L4Gh
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3747326/
http://viaf.org/viaf/154110584
http://www.youtube.com/user/NickiMinajAtVEVO
http://dbpedia.org/resource/Nicki_Minaj
http://www.freebase.com/m/047sxrj
related
Harvest facts, references, images, videos, ….
persons
events

9. Link your knowledge graphs with your
documents and data streams!
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axonomy/62346723
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altLabel Onika Tanya Maraj
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MTV Video
Music Award
VMA

10. 2. How do we benefit from it?
What are the use cases for linked data?

11. Benefit arguments
Cost effectiveness The systemic view
Operating
efficiency
Basic
argument
IT-Management /
Software Architect
Information &
Knowledge Management
Business Process
Management
Efficient
and agile
data model
Better reuse of
existing information
resources helps to save
costs
Better understanding of
relations between things
increases communication
skills
Unified views on
business objects
lead to better
decisions
Higher
information
quality
Efficient handling of
metadata
Increased transparency on
inconsistencies and
contradictions
Information flows
adapt to the needs
of the user
Improved
information
retrieval
Automatic structuring
of unstructured data
help to save costs
Consistent use of controlled
vocabularies triggers
additional network effects
BI-like, complex
queries become
possible

12. Use cases for linked data -
3 archetypical scenarios
Unified Views Contextual awareness BI-like, complex queries
http://reegle.info/countries http://www.eip-water.eu/ http://www.gbpn.org/

13. 3. Will it replace our existing systems?
An architectural question

14. Things are everywhere!
A four-layered information architecture
enterprise
knowledge model
domain specific
knowledge model
annotation &
categorization
legacy data
& documents

15. It won’t replace existing systems, but it
will change the way apps are developed

16. Make conceptual model & the semantics
of your data explicitly available

17. PoolParty Semantic Integrator:
Unified Views on various data sources
based on

18. 4. Can we reuse existing metadata?
Glossaries, schemes & vocabularies

19. Revisiting the good old
‘ontology continuum’
Taxonomy
Glossaries &
Folksonomy
Thesaurus
Semantic
Expressivity
Ontology
How about
linkability?
Is this really a
continuum?
What do we
need for text
mining?

20. From CSV and Excel to Taxonomies

21. From Folksonomies to Taxonomies
Free terms (candidate terms) are extracted from document collections
… and asserted into the
controlled vocabulary.

22. From Taxonomies to Ontologies:
Start with SKOS...

23. … and apply ontologies

24. Linkability: Modularize knowledge graphs
like you do with software!

25. SKOS is a ‘semantic interface’ to retrieve
and link distributed content
WKD German labor law thesaurus Eurovoc
STW
Thesaurus
DBpedia

26. 5. How can we integrate linked data
into our systems?

27. PoolParty PowerTagging: integrate
semantics in enterprise content systems

28. See how it works:
PoolParty components & workflows
works on
basis for
● reference taxonomies
● linked data sources
● text reference corpora
enrich
basis for
Developer
Taxonomist/
Ontologist
● Confluence, WordPress
SharePoint, Drupal
● search engine
● database
is user of Content
Manager
enrich
annotate
basis for
analyzes
uses API

29. 6. Where should we start?
Start SKOS, grow big!

30. SKOS is at the intersection of three
disciplines and their paradigms
SKOS
librarians &
taxonomists
data engineers &
schemas & artificial intelligence
taxonomies & ontologies
classification
systems
text mining &
data analytics
computational linguists &
information managers

31. SKOS makes taxonomies/thesauri
accessible, linkable & reusable
http://www.w3.org/2004/02/skos/

32. SKOS as a basis to visualize and browse
semantic knowledge graphs

33. SKOS: You are not alone...
● Eurovoc (EU)
● ESCO (EU)
● Jurivoc (SUI)
● ScoT (AUS)
● Agrovoc (UN)
● MeSH (US)
● Getty Vocabularies (US)
● GEMET (EEA)
● GeoThesaurus (AT)
● STW Economy (DE)
● Polythematic SH (CZ)
● Canadian Subject Headings (Can)
● LCSH (US)
● Worldbank Taxonomy (WBG)
● Labor Law Germany Thesaurus (DE)
● Reegle Thesaurus (REEEP)
● Austrian Tax Law Thesaurus (AT)
● UNESCO Thesaurus (UN)
● New York Times SH (US)
● RAMEAU subject headings (FR)
● TheSoz (DE)
● The General Finnish Thesaurus (FIN)
● NAL Thesaurus (US)
● Social Semantic Web Thesaurus (AT)
● Courts thesaurus (DE)
● SITC-V4 (UN)
● Google Product Taxonomy (US)
● NAICS 2012 (US)
● Common Procurement Vocabulary (ES)
● UKAT UK Archival Thesaurus (UK)
● NASA taxonomy (US)
● IVOA astronomy vocabularies (UK)
● IPTC News Codes (UK)
● WAND taxonomies (US)

34. The SKOS/Linked Data based approach for
information integration
Provide integrated & interlinked views on
all kind of information
Transforming documents
into SKOS based graphs
Annotating &
categorising
documents
SKOS based graph of
concepts
Tree of categories
& terms
Standards based
ontologies applied to
SKOS based
concept graphs
Schemas, classes,
properties,
restrictions & rules

35. Let your documents become part of
something bigger & make them smart!
Transforming documents
into SKOS based graphs
Annotating &
categorising
documents
http://vocabulary.semantic-web.
at/semweb/367
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Tim Berners-Lee TimBL
Show me biographies of all
computer scientists working
for an organization located
near Boston.

36. Start SKOS, grow big.
So Long, and Thanks
for All the Links

37. Contact points & further information
Andreas Blumauer, MSc ITa.blumauer@semantic-web.at
http://at.linkedin.com/in/andreasblumauer/
https://plus.google.com/115842492297705285184/
Semantic Web Company GmbH
Mariahilfer Strasse 70/8, A-1070 Vienna
+43-1-4021235
http://www.semantic-web.at
http://www.poolparty-software.com
http://slideshare.net/semwebcompany
http://youtube.com/semwebcompany