The Language Archive – Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics Nijmegen, The Netherlands TLA/MPI requirements for a Semantic Registry

Agenda 9:30 Introduction: Daan Broeder 10:00 CLARIN requirements: Menzo Windhouwer 10:45 coffee & tea 11:15 TLA requirements: Daan Broeder 11:45 ISO TC 37 requirements: Sue Ellen Wright 12:30 lunch 13:30 discussion 15:00 coffee & tea 15:30 discussion & conclusion - Sebastian Drude

ISOcat History & TLA ISOcat precursor: Syntax (INRIA) < 2007: LIRICS project TLA involvement with ISOcat 2007 – 2013 MPI as RA since 2008 Support & funding – MPG specific support for a year – RELISH: lexicon interoperability, – CLARIN: semantic interoperability: metadata, tagsets – TLA proper resources Several drives & cycles of modifications – Improvements for usability – Interoperability with other tools: CLARIN CMDI tools – to support the ISO standardization workflow – To support community driven standardization

Status Registration Authority for the ISO-DCR with MPI- PL since 2008 MPI/TLA Responsible for the maintenance and extension of the ISO-DCR – ISO TC37 decides on (standardized) content – ISO TC37 has inspired functional extensions Always good discussion under the supervision of ISO TC37 at the plenaries and beyond As yet no standardized DCs All ISO inspired ISOcat processes seem stuck 4

TLA perception wrt. ISOcat issues Actual use of the ISO-DCR by the user community is below our expectations. Causative factors: – The complex model of the DCR confuses many users for whom a simple concept definition would be sufficient but are now confronted with a for them confusing user interface – ISO standardization process that does not seem to fit the non- terminology linguistic community – not a single DC has been standardized – Current content of many DCs is of low quality and does not inspire participation – It is especially in research infrastructure projects as CLARIN, where resource providers have been 'forced' to use the ISO-DCR that we noticed the before mentioned factors Actual use of the ISO-DCR by the user community is below our expectations 11 June 2013ISO TC 37 plenary - DCR meeting5

ISOcat Future Although we are positive about the contribution that the work on the ISO-DCR has given to the discussion and concept development on the need for semantic interoperability, we feel that we should also consider alternatives. For this we plan to organise a conference in Q where alternative solutions for semantic interoperability can be compared and discussed and we will of course invite interested people from the TC 37 community to participate. The outcome of such discussions may lead to MPI-PL changing its use and support for the current form of the ISO- DCR. Of course MPI-PL will assist any other party that is prepared to take over the running and maintenance of the ISO-DCR in its current form and become registration authority in our place. In any case the MPI-PL will honor its commitments regarding the persistency of DCs. 11 June 2013ISO TC 37 plenary - DCR meeting6

TLA SEMANTIC REGISTRY REQUIREMENTS

What does TLA want for a SR? A Semantic Registry that we can use with our current and future projects to: – makes semantics explicit: documentation – support semantic interoperability: functionality Has some persistency (longer than a project’s lifetime) Supports community processes – Community coordination, recommendation etc. Visible content can be controlled The whole package GUI+content is sufficiently attractive to convince people to use it Can be used by adjacent communities from SSH Can be maintained at acceptable costs – Share with other communities – Use ready available software (as a basis)

TLA - projects CLARIN + associated: Joint domain of LR and LT – ISOcat + RELcat: – Tagset interoperability – Architecture needs: PID + term + description+ examples + API + relations + coordination DASISH Social Sciences & Humanities common services – Metadata interoperability needs: PID + term + description. Use handcrafted equivalences based on schema inspection and docs – Tools & Services registry EUDAT general Data Management Services – Metadata interoperability needs: PID + term + description. Use handcrafted equivalences based on schema inspection and docs – Semantic services: still in planning stage RDA: Research Data Alliance, for now just talking – Data Type Registry WG has implementation that can use a SR: PID + term + description

A (very (too?)) simple model PID Term Description Examples Key/value For grouping concepts e.g. taxonomies and community specific purposes a set of key/value pairs is very powerful (Can support limited relations and typing when you need that) Principals and privileges Key/value Manage access and collaboration Organize the concepts

What do we currently have? ISOcat works, but not very well so. Content Quality is not always very good and people are reluctant to add. – Partly by historic reasons (SYNTAX) – Frequent errors made by contributors: complex model – Proliferation of DCs Not able to find useful existing definitions Insufficient coordination GUI too complex and slow caused partly by complex model Standardization process did not work – Required modifications to support community coordination Difficult to convince our own community, certainly difficult to convince colleagues from other disciplines Expensive in maintenance both software and coordination We spent much time implementing unused functionality

TLA Strategies A.ISOcat stays as it is. – MPI stays RA and responsible for development – ISO link is maintained – TLA: costs are high, little synergy with other projects B.TLA stops as RA – Less costs – ISO link is maintained – find suitable partner as RA – TLA: develops/uses LW SR C.Adapt ISOcat, leaner model, no stdz. workflow – Costs for keeping static image of current DCs – Possibly more synergy, more agile – Move functions (typing) to RelCat – More easy maintenance D.Hybrid model: light-weight/open SR and ISOcat (closed SR) – Cost do not diminish – Better management for communities – ISO link is maintained E. New Semantic registry lightweight SR – Costs for keeping static image of current DCs – Possibly existing product (SKOS based, Media Wiki, …), no maintenance – Possibly more synergy, shared development – ISO link severed, more agile F. (Mis)use existing CMS as DRUPAL, PLONE – Costs for keeping static image of current DCs – Process functions taken care of – But data-entry, forms have to be programmed – PIDs? – Little maintenance – ISO link severed, more agile

Cost / Benefits (TLA centric) actionMaint.Initial costs CLARINSynergy other projects ISO compatibility Keep ISOcat as it is ISOcat -> other RA TLA new LW Reg Leaner ISOcat model without ISO stdz (ISO requirements?) Hybrid ISOcat + LW Reg New LW Reg Use existing CMS0--++0