A Structured Analysis of Domain-Specific Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV): Indicators for Interoperability and Reusability

Abstract

The concept of linking data, in its core, is one of the cornerstones of the Semantic Web, and the design principles of Linked Data aim to establish standardization for knowledge representation. The rationale behind this research is to analyze Linked Open Vocabularies (LOV) to elicit useful insights regarding the status and potential of interoperability of existing vocabularies, organized in thematic areas (domains). The goal behind the latter is to identify how semantic interoperability of vocabularies (and datasets which are described by the relevant knowledge schema) could be improved, while the expected outcome is an enhanced overview of the existing knowledge representation in the LOV ecosystem, with emphasis put on domain-specific vocabularies and their reuse. In order to gain a general perspective of the domain-specific vocabularies that currently exist, a mapping between the 13 European Data Portal (EDP) thematic categories and the categorization of LOV was initially performed. Afterwards, an analysis framework to capture the information from this desk-based research was included. The analysis framework included: i) the connections of the identified (from the initial mapping) domain-specific vocabularies to core vocabularies in the LOV ecosystem, ii) the connections of domain-specific vocabularies to vocabularies within the same domain, and iii) the connections of domain-specific vocabularies to the other domains. The previous three dimensions were then combined to create an initial assessment on how reusable and thus, interoperable (and beyond) the vocabularies under analysis were, acting as an indicator for domain interoperability readiness.