Making use of upper ontologies to foster interoperability between SKOS concept schemes

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to introduce a mapping of the Simple Knowledge Organization Systems (SKOS) Core metadata to an ontology‐based model, whose main aim is to foster the semantic interoperability of different concept schemes. Design/methodology/approach – Research objectives have been achieved through the introduction of a common ground for the definition of concepts, based on shared definitions included in widely used upper ontologies. This effort makes use of a particular upper ontology: OpenCyc , the open source version of Cyc, which is currently one of the most complete general knowledge bases. Findings – An in‐depth study of the SKOS vocabulary has suggested its extension, with the aim of correcting the shortcomings related with SKOS schemes semantic interoperability. However, although such an extension would help avoid ambiguities and enable inter‐thesaurus interoperability, the paper is focused on using a non‐invasive contribution. Non‐invasive in that the SKOS Core should not be modified as a result of this activity, but also, non‐invasive in that current SKOS schemes would not require modifications. Originality/value – The use of formal representations to provide the SKOS terms with computational semantics, as well as the introduction of an intermediate ontology‐based model built on the SKOS information. Although both proposals stand on one upper ontology (OpenCyc), they could be easily adapted to others, which provides an added value to this research work.