The Association Ontology 0.4

Status of This Document

The Association Ontology hooks up parts of the Similarity Ontology, the Review Ontology and DCMI Metadata Terms. The template of this specification is derived from the FOAF Vocabulary Specification, which was created by Dan Brickley and Libby Miller, and the Music Ontology Specification, which was created by Yves Raimond. It was modified and extended by Bob Ferris. Furthermore, a modified and extended version of Danbri's SpecGen version was used to generate most of the RDFa statements of the Association Ontology for this specification (see here for SpecGen version 6 by Bob Ferris).

This document is created by combining the RDFS/OWL machine-readable Association Ontology with a human-readable HTML representation that includes RDFa annotations. Future versions may incorporate multilingual translations of term definitions. The RDF/XML version of the specification is also available directly from the namespace URI. RDF/N3 representations could be access via the links above.

The authors welcome comments on this document, preferably via the author's email addresses.

Table of Contents

• The Association Ontology at a glance
• Examples
• Introduction
• What's the Association Ontology for?
• Background
• The Association Ontology and Standards
• Evolution and Extension of the Association Ontology
• The Association Ontology cross-reference: Listing the Association Ontology Classes and Properties
• External Vocabulary References
• Acknowledgments
• Recent Changes

The Association Ontology at a glance

The sim:Association concept, as graph with relations, as it is extended by this ontology (incl. the relation to rev:Review):

An a-z index of Association Ontology terms, by class (categories or types) and by property.

Examples

The music playlist example as graph (see also here, for another graph view, and here, for an extended graph view, of this example):

RDF/Turtle representation of a playlist example that uses associations created with the Association Ontology (see also RDF and N3 for downloadable representations of this example):

@prefix xsd:     <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
@prefix dc:      <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/> .
@prefix olo:     <http://purl.org/ontology/olo/core#> .
@prefix pbo:     <http://purl.org/ontology/pbo/core#> .
@prefix ao:      <http://purl.org/ontology/ao/core#> .
@prefix mo:      <http://purl.org/ontology/mo/> .
@prefix ex:      <http://example.org/> .
@prefix sim:     <http://purl.org/ontology/similarity/> .
 
ex:FunkyPlaylist a pbo:Playlist ;
   dc:title "Funky Playlist"^^xsd:string ;
   dc:description "A playlist full of funky legends"^^xsd:string ;
   dc:creator <http://foaf.me/zazi#me> ;
   olo:length 2 ;
   sim:association ex:ZazisAssociation ;
   sim:association ex:BobsAssociationInUse ;
   pbo:playlist_slot [   
      a pbo:PlaylistSlot ;
      olo:index 1 ;
      pbo:playlist_item ex:SexMachine
   ] ;
   pbo:playlist_slot [
      a pbo:PlaylistSlot ;
      olo:index 2 ;
      pbo:playlist_item ex:GoodFoot
   ] .
 
ex:SexMachine a mo:Track ;
   dc:title "Sex Machine"^^xsd:string ;
   dc:creator <http://dbpedia.org/resource/James_Brown> .
 
ex:GoodFoot a mo:Track ;
   dc:title "Good Foot"^^xsd:string .	
 
ex:ZazisAssociation a sim:Association ;
   dc:creator <http://foaf.me/zazi#me> ;
   ao:genre "Funk"^^xsd:string ;
   ao:mood "party"^^xsd:string ;
   ao:occasion "my birthday party 2008"^^xsd:string .
 
ex:BobsAssociation a sim:Association ;
   dc:creator <http://foaf.me/zazi#me> ;
   ao:genre ex:Funk ;
   ao:mood "happy"^^xsd:string ;
   ao:occasion "good feeling music"^^xsd:string .
 
ex:BobsAssociationInUse a ao:LikeableAssociation ;
   ao:included_association ex:BobsAssociation ;
   ao:likeminded <http://moustaki.org/foaf.rdf#moustaki> .
 
ex:Funk a mo:Genre .

This examples shows a music playlist described with the help of the Play Back Ontology and Ordered List Ontology. Each music track is a mo:Track instance. The playlist has two association statements related by sim:association. The first one (ex:ZazisAssocation) is modeled as an association to a specific occasion, which is related by ao:occasion. Furthermore, this association statement includes (music) genre (ao:genre) and mood ( ao:mood) categorisations as simple string typed literals.
The second association statement (ex:BobsAssociationInUse) is an ao:LikeableAssociation instance that includes (ao:included_association) a reuseable association statement (ex:BobsAssociation). As the domain specific (but abstract) association relations - ao:genre, ao:mood, ao:occasion - have no range, sub properties with specific ranges could be created from them (e.g. mo:genre for music genres/styles (this isn't currently the case)). To illustrate this use case, the example includes a specific mo:Genre instance (ex:Funk) to ex:BobsAssociation. Finally, because ex:BobsAssociationInUse is a likeable association statement in the context of the described music playlist (ex:FunkyPlaylist), other people could expressed that they like this association - as it is done in the example by using the relation ao:likeminded - or they are able to feedback (e.g. rev:Feedback) or rate (rev:rating) it.

Introduction: Association Ontology Basics

What's the Association Ontology for?

The Association Ontology combines features of the Similarity Ontology, the Review Ontology and DCMI Metadata Terms. The intend behind this ontology is to provide a mechanism to append (personal) association statements (sim:Association) to something by using the relation sim:association. This step of indirection is neccessary to enable:

• reusable association statements and
• voting, rating and reviewing of association statements in a specific context.

Therefore, the sub class ao:LikeableAssociation was created, which combines the concepts of sim:Association and rev:Review. Simple voting (the "like button") can be realized by using the property ao:likeminded, which creates a relation between an association statement and an individuum (foaf:Agent). Ratings and reviews can be realized by using the features of the Review Ontology, e.g. rev:rating or rev:Feedback.
To address associations of a specific domain, e.g. genre, mood or occasion, new sub properties based on dcterms:subject were created. These are:

• ao:genre: a hook for genres descriptions of all kind,
• ao:mood: a hook for mood descriptions and
• ao:occasion: a hook for occasion descriptions.

They are intendend to be an abstact and general hook into their specific domains (genre, mood, occasion). Furthermore, new, more specific sub properties based on these properties should be created to provide a hook in more specific domains, e.g. mo:genre for music genres/styles (this sub property relation isn't currently the case).
To enable voting, rating and reviewing of a reusable association statements in a specific context, the property ao:included_association was created. By using this relation one can include a reusable association statement into another association statement (preferable based on ao:LikeableAssociation). Please have also a look at the example in this document, which illstrates this use case.

Background

TODO

The Association Ontology and Standards

TODO

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The Association Ontology Description

This specification serves as the Association Ontology "namespace document". As such it describes the Association Ontology and the terms (RDF classes and properties) that constitute it, so that Semantic Web applications can use those terms in a variety of RDF-compatible document formats and applications.

This document presents the Association Ontology as a Semantic Web vocabulary or Ontology. The Association Ontology is pretty simple, pragmatic and designed to allow simultaneous deployment and extension. The Association Ontology is intended for widescale use, but its authors make no commitments regarding its suitability for any particular purpose.

Evolution and Extension of the Association Ontology

The Association Ontology is identified by the namespace URI 'http://purl.org/ontology/ao/core#'. Revisions and extensions of the Association Ontology are conducted through edits to this document, which by convention is accessible in the Web via the namespace URI. For practical and deployment reasons, note that we do not update the namespace URI as the vocabulary matures.

The evolution of the Association Ontology is best considered in terms of the stability of individual vocabulary terms, rather than the specification as a whole. As terms stabilise in usage and documentation, they progress through the categories 'unstable', 'testing' and 'stable'. Older terms are marked 'archaic' which allows the possibility of older forms to become modern again.