sioc

DRAFT 1159178080
 * Semantically-interlinked online community**

> SIOC [(Semantically-interlinked online community [|http://rdfs.org/sioc])] is an **ontology** for describing and linking discussion forums and threaded posts in online community sites. The first version of this ontology has been created by the Semantic Web cluster at DERI Galway, and can be used to create metadata from community discussion systems such as blogs and forums. SIOC metadata producers are also being created for some popular discussion systems. ([|W3C Australian Newsletter], May 2005, retrieved August 29, 2006)

Semantic Web researchers from DERI, Galway, argue that simple "general purpose ontologies, (e.g. vCard, and FOAF, so called 'person' ontologies; Dublin Core and RSS web-documents ontologies) have achieved widespread acceptance, but they are not sufficient for bringing semantic functionality to community portals that contain large amounts of information that deserves to be semantically interlinked (O'Murchu, Zhdanova, & Breslin, 2007, forthcoming).

To Breslin, Decker, Harth, and Bojars "Online communities are islands of people and topics that are not interlinked," (2006, abstract sect.), an observation that could also be made about the majority of face-to-face communities, since for example, there may be multiple communities within any given population and not directly connected. Communities are social. They are dynamic, and overlapping and idiosyncratic vocabularies. The challenge then with online community technologies then might be to provide functional tools that help users to move from one community to another, with tools that leverage the interrelations provided by linguistic relations of overlapping vocabularies. This boundary objects model could enable system users to be migrated from one community to another, as their discursive needs change.

According to Breslin, Decker, Harth and Bojars, "Complementary discussions exist on disparate systems but it is currently difficult to exploit the available distributed information," (2006, abstract sect.).

Similar problems are highlighted in the //Cluetrain Manifesto//, where David Weinberger et al. develop a vision for the web as a conversation, or interlinked conversation, full of "internetworked markets [of] intranetworked employees [participating in] networked conversations [enabled by] new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange [that will] emerge," ([|Cluetrain.com], retrieved August 29, 2006; c.f. Levine, Locke, Searls, & Weinberger, 2000).

As O'Murchu, Zhdanova, and Breslin explain: SIOC aims to capture semantic information from within community web site, and the discussions they contain. It has been designed for the purpose of providing users browseable community portals in which they can easily create semantic instances (2007, forthcoming).

SIOC then, is a simple ontology for use in community portals and discussion forums. > A Semantically Interlinked Online Community (SIOC) can enable efficient information dissemination across communities by creating an ontology that will model concepts identified in discussion methods. Data instances can be accessed from community sites using this ontology, enabling connections between local and remote concept instances, and allowing queries on, or transfer of, the data. By searching on one forum, the ontology and interface will allow users to find information on other forums that use a SIOC-based system architecture. Other uses include cross-site querying, topic-related searches, and the importing of SIOC data into other systems. Fusing information and inferring links among various applications and types of information with SIOC provide relevant insights that make the community information available on the internet more valuable. (Breslin, Decker, Harth, & Bojars 2006, abstract sect.)


 * Internal links**
 * visions


 * External Links**
 * SIOC (Semantically-Interlinked Online Community [|http://rdfs.org/sioc]) ontology


 * References**

Breslin, J. G., Decker, S., Harth, A., & Bojars, U. (2006). SIOC: an approach to connect web-based communities. //International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2//(2).

Levine, R., Locke, C., Searls, D., & Weinberger, D. (2000). //The cluetrain manifesto: The end of business as usual//. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.

O'Murchu, I., Zhdanova, A. V., & Breslin, J. (2007, forthcoming). Semantic community portals. In A. Tatnall (Ed.), //Encyclopedia of Portal Technologies and Applications//. Hershey, PA: Idea Group.

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