Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)

Abstract

SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) is a recommendation from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for representing controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, thesauri, classifications, and similar systems for organizing and indexing information as linked data elements in the Semantic Web, using the Resource Description Framework (RDF). The SKOS data model is centered on “concepts”, which can have preferred and alternate labels in any language as well as other metadata, and which are identified by addresses on the World Wide Web (URIs). Concepts are grouped into hierarchies through “broader” and “narrower” relations, with “top concepts” at the broadest conceptual level. Concepts are also organized into “concept schemes”, also identified by URIs. Other relations, mappings, and groupings are also supported. This article discusses the history of the development of SKOS and provides notes on adoption, uses, and limitations.