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The info:eu-repo URIs are persistent identifiers for non-informational resources. Such non-informational resources include classifications and "real world objects". One important category is concepts; concepts are classes or properties. For these a subclass of the info:eu-repo URIs is introduced: the info:eu-repo/semantics URIs. The info URIs are not resolvable which makes them ideal as persistent identifiers of abstract things like concepts. On the other hand there is a need to link the URIs to their semantics. In the Semantic Web this is done by a redirection to a RDF document in which the semantic relations of the object for which the URI stands are described. We propose a service that supports URIs of the following form: http://purl.org/info:eu-repo/... (which is the same as http://www.purl.org/info:eu-repo/... - default hostname is "www"). The URI http://purl.org/info:eu-repo/semantics URIs results in a '303 see other' 302 redirection to a RDF document in which the concepts for which the URIs stand are described.The namespace is an authoritive placeholder for semantic terms, controlled vocabularies and identifiers. By using this namespace all the terms used have a "web presence". Therefore it is no longer an arbitrary string, but contains meaning. This utilisation makes it future-proof.The purpose of the info:eu-repo registry is not to create a comprehensive, complete ontology. Instead its purpose is to fill holes. The registry introduces terms with which existing ontologies can be complemented and connected with each other.
Practice
The http://purl.org/info:eu-repo/semantics URIs will be linked to URIs that stand for concepts from other vocabularies. E.g., several of the terms from Eprints Type Vocabulary Encoding Scheme (http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/repositories/digirep/index/Eprints_Type_Vocabulary_Encoding_Scheme) are owl:sameAs terms from info:eu-repo/semantics:
<info:eu-repo/semantics/article> <owl:sameAs> <http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle>
In the case a concept is already defined in another vocabulary, the concept gets a eu-repo/semantics URI if
• the semantics of the concept is not described by that vocabulary
• the concept is relevant for repositories
A review board is needed for checking of these criteria. The maintainer of the registry should see to it that a requested term is checked through http://sameas.org. All owl:sameAs relations can be accessed via this service. On short term SURFShare is able to do this. On the long term KNAW might be able to do it.
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