Legal Thesaurus: Linked Open Data
\nSemantic Representation
\nVersion: 1.3
\nLast updated: 24 May 2016
\nHTML version: http:\/\/legalthesaurus.org (for linking)
\nPDF version: http:\/\/legalthesaurus.org\/gvp-lod.pdf (for printing)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This document explains the representation of the Legal Thesaurus in semantic format, using appropriate ontologies.<\/p>\n
The document is published in HTML format, with appropriately and permanently named anchors for each section that can be shared in discussions. It is also published in PDF appropriate for printing.<\/p>\n
Many data in the Thesaurus comes from the Encyclopedia of Law. The quality of data is higher since it’s a centralized database (“single source of truth” for each claim) and has stricter editorial process<\/p>\n
The Legal Thesaurus were first built to help users categorize, describe, and index law information available in the projects of Lawi. The thesaurs is partially compliant with international standards.<\/p>\n
Lawi Data is a database of facts. Lawi Data is intended to provide a central data store for all the legal Encyclopedias. <\/p>\n
The Legal Thesaurus is a structured, multilingual vocabulary including terms, descriptions, and other information for generic concepts related to law, tax, politics and public administration.<\/p>\n
Terms for any concept may include the plural form of the term, singular form, natural order, inverted order, spelling variants, academic and common forms, various forms of speech, and synonyms that have various etymological roots. Among these terms, one is flagged as the term (or descriptor)<\/em> preferred by the Legal Thesaurus. There may be multiple descriptors<\/em> reflecting usage in multiple languages.<\/p>\n The Legal Thesaurus is a thesaurus<\/em> in quasy compliance with ISO and NISO standards.<\/p>\n The focus of each Legal Thesaurus record is a concept. Linked to each concept are terms, related concepts, its position in the hierarchy, sources for the data, and notes. The conceptual framework of facets and hierarchies in the Legal Thesaurus is designed to allow a general classification scheme for legal subjects and related fields. There may be multiple broader contexts, making Legal Thesaurus\u00a0polyhierarchical.<\/em> In addition the Legal Thesaurus has equivalence and associative relationships. The temporal coverage of the Legal Thesaurus ranges from Antiquity to the present and the scope is global.<\/p>\n See more information<\/a> about the history, purpose and scope of the Legal Thesaurus.<\/p>\n The Biographic Micro-thesauro is a structured vocabulary that includes proper names or anonymous appellations (e.g., Master of the Aachen Altar), biographies, related people or corporate bodies, and other information about judges, lawyers, firms, tribunals, and other people and groups involved in legal issues. Records in ULAN include either individuals (persons) or groups of individuals working together (corporate bodies).<\/p>\n The focus of each Biographic Micro-thesauro record is a person or group (judge, corporate body, lawyer, etc). Linked to each artist record are names, sources for the data, and notes. The temporal coverage of the Biographic Micro-thesauro ranges from Antiquity to the present and the scope is global.<\/p>\n Names in the Biographic Micro-thesauro may include given names, pseudonyms, variant spellings, names in multiple languages, and names that have changed over time (e.g., married names). Among these names, one is flagged as the preferred name.<\/p>\n Even though the structure is relatively flat, the Biographic Micro-thesauro is constructed as a hierarchical thesaurus; compliant with ISO and NISO standards for thesaurus construction. It currently has five published facets (see Hierarchy and Classes below). There may be multiple parents, making the Biographic Micro-thesauro structure\u00a0polyhierarchical<\/em>.<\/p>\n See more information about the history, purpose and scope of theBiographic Micro-thesauro; and see Biographic Micro-thesauro Specifics for the semantic representation of ULAN data.<\/p>\n We anticipate that in the future, the data will be refreshed more often.<\/p>\n Numerous individuals<\/a> are serving as External Advisors on this project. Most have been recommended by colleagues in our community (e.g., International Terminology Working Group members who are currently translating the AAT into various languages). We ended up inviting a fairly large group because we wanted to make sure that we had expertise in many areas. It has been very important to us that these trusted colleagues had a chance to comment on our ontology choices prior to the release of the datasets.<\/p>\n We welcome comments if you find something in this document or our dataset that needs clarification or improvement. We ask specifically for your opinion in several places in this document, as listed in Future Versions<\/a>.<\/p>\n We have established a public discussion forum (Google Group) which we hope the community will use to ask questions, discuss issues, and find solutions related to the technical aspects of this publication.<\/p>\n The vocabulary datasets are provided “as is”. The Getty disclaims all other warranties, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to the database. The Getty Vocabularies are compiled by the Getty Vocabulary Program from contributions from various contributors, including museums, libraries, archives, bibliographic indexing projects, international translation projects, and others. Not all contributor data complies precisely with the GVP Editorial Guidelines; therefore, absolute consistency in the dataset is not possible. The data is subject to frequent updates and corrections.<\/p>\n The prefixes that we use (both internal and external) are defined in the following sections. See Prefixes.<\/p>\n Our mapping uses a number of external ontologies (as listed in External Prefixes): \u00b7 Core Dublin: DC, DCT for common properties: DCT properties are more newer strict than DC properties, and a lot of them require URI.We use DC\/DCT for various common properties, e.g. dc:identifier, dct:source, dct:contributor, dct:created, dct:modified. If both a DC and DCT property fit a purpose, we use the DCT property if the target is a URL.<\/p>\n Schema.org Geographic Features: We use\u00a0(schema:Place<\/a>).<\/p>\n Schema.org for Agents: We’ve selected it in preference to FOAF, since it has more of what we need<\/p>\n Subjects have the following information, described in the respective sections: SKOS and ISO 25964 provide a number of hierarchical relations. We use the following (d<\/strong> shows the direction up\/down):<\/p>\n SKOS and ISO 25964<\/a> provide a number of hierarchical relations. We use the following (d<\/strong> shows the direction up\/down):<\/p>\n
\nThe thesaurus contains hierarchical, equivalence, and associative relationships. Currently there are several facets.<\/p>\nBiographic Micro-thesauro<\/h3>\n
1.2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Revisions, Review, Feedback<\/h2>\n
1.2.1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Revisions<\/h3>\n
1.2.2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 External Review Process<\/h3>\n
1.2.3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Providing Feedback<\/h3>\n
\n
1.2.4\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disclaimer<\/h3>\n
1.5\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Prefixes<\/h2>\n
External Ontologies<\/h2>\n
\n\u00b7 SKOS and ISO 25964 for representing thesaurus info: They are similar, but skos:Collection has these limitations (you can’t put them under a Concept, you can’t say explicitly which are Top Collections in a scheme and you don’t have inverse\/transitive versions of skos:member). We use iso:ThesaurusArray, which is a subclass of skos:Collection but can be put under a Concept using iso:superOrdinate.<\/p>\n\n
Subject<\/h2>\n
\n\u00b7 Subjects are connected to the Legal thsaurus: ConceptScheme using skos:inScheme.
\n\u00b7 Associative Relations: apply to Concepts only
\n\u00b7 dc:identifier (see Identifiers)
\n\u00b7 skos:exactMatch to other thesauri (see Alignment): applies to Concepts only
\n\u00b7 skos:scopeNote links to Scope Notes
\n\u00b7 dct:source links to Source (can be to Local Sources as shown, or directly to a global Source)<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Standard Hierarchical Relations<\/h3>\n
.3.1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Standard Hierarchical Relations<\/h3>\n