XKOS - Extended Knowledge Organization System

XKOS leverages the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) for managing statistical classifications and concept management systems, since SKOS is widely used. LOD is used to create Web artifacts that machines can interpret, so publishing machine-readable statistical classifications and other concept management systems as SKOS instances is desired. The XKOS developers found that SKOS was insufficient for the problem. No aspect of SKOS was found to be wrong, just incomplete. Therefore, an extension to SKOS, called XKOS, is proposed.

XKOS extends SKOS for the needs of statistical classifications. It does so in two main directions. First, it defines a number of terms that enable the representation of statistical classifications with their structure and textual properties, as well as the relations between classifications. Second, it refines SKOS semantic properties to allow the use of more specific relations between concepts. Those specific relations can be used for the representation of classifications or for any other case where SKOS is employed. XKOS adds the extensions that are desirable to meet the requirements of the statistical community.