Hi all Axis users,
As part of the SWAD-Europe project (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/) we have released the announcement I forward here.
* What is 'DREFT'?
Our demonstrator (*not* production grade software, but freely available) is of a SOAP Thesaurus service. We have named it DREFT. The software is written in Java and uses Axis, plus a piece of software called 'Sesame' for the 'semantic bit'. Further information may be found via the forwarded message below.
* What is the intended purpose of such a service?
It allows for the simple migration of existing thesauri / knowledge organization systems to the Semantic Web.
* What can this service do?
For example, it can return information about thesaurus concepts to clients. Client-side applications will typically ask questions such as
"Please send me concepts that have the keyword 'education'" (a response will include scope notes, preferred and non-preferred labels for such concepts if they exist),
or,
"Please send me concepts that are broader/narrower than the concept that has the preferred label 'insulating material'"
And so on. In this way a thesaurus service on the network may be used by any application (non-Semantic Web applications included) that needs to work with thesaurus terms. In future work cross-mappings between thesauri may be implemented for DREFT (some standards work has already been completed towards this end).
* Is DREFT Standards-based?
Well, I'm brave enough to admit that our current version of DREFT uses an RPC/Encoded service style ;-) However subsequent versions will likely employ the Doc/Literal service style to equal effect.
In order to constrain message content for interoperability DREFT currently uses:
i) the RDF schema for thesauri - SKOS (see [1] below) - plus
ii) WSDL definitions for the complex types, plus
iii) the SOAP Data Encoding schema
This is sufficient for our purposes, but obviously an XML schema (based on SKOS) could be used in addition to i) and ii) to support interoperability for XML-based applications.
Regards, Nikki Rogers
---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Date: Wednesday, September 08, 2004 12:49:46 +0100 From: Dave Beckett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: Announcement of SWAD Europe Thesaurus API Demonstrator - DREFT
DREFT(*) SKOS Thesaurus API Demonstrator http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/dreft/
Developed by the SWAD-Europe Thesaurus Activity
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/ EU IST project SWAD-Europe
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/We are pleased to announce the public release of the SKOS Thesaurus API Demonstrator implementing an API to the SKOS-Core 1.0[1] model.
This work includes multiple parts:
* The SKOS Thesaurus API described in WSDL http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/api/docs/ http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/api/wsdl/Service.wsdl
* A server providing the API written in Java with Sesame and Apache Axis http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/dreft/
* An example API client written in Python with ZSI SOAP libraries http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/dreft/
* A live server with SOAP web service API http://thes.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/SKOSThesaurusService
* A live demo client with web forms interface http://thes.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/demos/get
* Sample data for GEMET and UK GCL thesauri http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/dreft/
* A draft report on all this work including the API development http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/8.7/
All of these materials are available for you to download, use and read as appropriate.
Dave Beckett Nikki Rogers Alistair Miles
(*)Demo of RDF Thesaurus, with a bit of SOAP
[1] SKOS-Core 1.0 Guide http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/reports/thes/1.0/guide/
---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
---------------------- NJ Rogers, Technical Researcher (Semantic Web Applications Developer) Institute for Learning and Research Technology (ILRT) Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: +44(0)117 9287096 (Direct) Tel: +44(0)117 9287193 (Office)
