what_are_tm
What are Topic Maps?
General
Topic Maps are an ISO standard for the representation and interchange of knowledge, with an emphasis on the findability of information. The standard is formally known as ISO/IEC 13250:2003..
Topic Maps can be used to describe knowledge structures and associate them with relevant information resources. Topic Maps act as a meta-navigation layer above information resources. Topics are independent and flexible because they only consist of references to relevant resources.
The main aim of Topic Maps is the representation and interchange of knowledge, therefore they have been described as “the GPS of the information universe”. Topic Maps are destined to provide powerful new ways of navigating large and interconnected corpora to support the users in the information retrieval process.
A Topic Map can represent information using:
- topics - representing any concept, from people, countries and organizations to software modules, individual files and events
- associations - which represent the relationships between them
- occurrences - which represent relationships between topics and information resources relevant to them
They are thus similar to semantic networks and mind maps in many respects. Topics, associations, and occurrences can be typed, but the types must be defined by the creator of the Topic Maps, and is known as the ontology of the Topic Map. There are also additional features, such as merging and scope. The concept of merging and identity allows automated integration of Topic Maps from diverse sources into a coherent new Topic Map.
Data model
Topic Maps have a standard XML-based interchange syntax called XML Topic Maps (XTM), as well as a de facto standard API called Common Topic Map Application Programming Interface (TMAPI). A query and schema languages are being developed within ISO.
The specification is summarized in the abstract as follows: “This specification provides a model and grammar for representing the structure of information resources used to define topics, and the associations (relationships) between topics. Names, resources, and relationships are said to be characteristics of abstract subjects, which are called topics. Topics have their characteristics within scopes: i.e. the limited contexts within which the names and resources are regarded as their name, resource, and relationship characteristics. One or more interrelated documents employing this grammar is called a topic map.”
A format called linear Topic Map notation (LTM) serves as a kind of shorthand for writing topic maps in plain text editors. This is useful for writing short personal topic maps or exchange partial Topic Maps by email. The format can be converted to XTM.
There is another format called AsTMa which serves a similar purpose. When writing Topic Maps manually it is much more compact but as well has to be converted to XTM to be useful in applications.
References
- Books:
- Lutz Maicher and Jack Park: Charting the Topic Maps Research and Applications Landscape, Springer 2006.
- Jack Park and Sam Hunting (Hrsg.): XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web. Addison-Wesley 2002.
bibmap.xtm
- Online ressourcess:
- The TAO of Topic Maps: finding the way in the age of infoglut (Pepper)
This paper gives a very good non-technical introduction to topics, associations, occurrences (TAO), and other concepts (the IFs and BUTs of topic maps)
This is the first paper you should read, if you are interested in Topic Maps. - A Gentle Introduction to Topic Maps as part of the XTM standard
Find information about Topic Map releated internet resources (web pages, blogs) ...
This site is based on the article „Topic map“ from the free encyclopedia.Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. A list of versions and the authors is available on the Wikipedia web page.
