We are especially excited about an optional new feature in the new release of Synaptica KMS version 8.0 that can help to enrich your internal taxonomies by linking them to external taxonomies and databases that contain additional descriptive properties and relationships.
You may already have heard of Linked Data (LD), or Linked Open Data (LOD), and might even be using it today. This W3C standard allows systems to expose, share, and combine information that may be located on multiple servers and curated by different publishers. The Linked Data format uses URIs and RDF to allow one to search, view, and link to this information using the SPARQL query language.
Synaptica’s Linked Data Manager allows concepts in your internal KMS managed taxonomies to be linked to equivalent concepts and their properties (attributes) in external Linked Data sources, and for information from those external sources to be ingested and appended to those concepts managed within your Synaptica KMS system.
Following are two example use-cases.
If you manage a taxonomy of public figures, you might be missing certain biographical details such as age, birthplace, or job title. By mapping your record for an individual to the equivalent entity in a Linked Data source, such as DBpedia, you may be able to identify the missing biographical properties and use them to augment the information that you already have.
If you manage a taxonomy of geographic entities, you might already have country and city names, but be missing additional details such as geographic coordinates. By mapping your entities to a Linked Data source, such as GeoNames, you are able to augment your knowledge assets with latitude and longitude, links to broader and narrower geospatial entities, and even retrieve maps, satellite imagery, and other related data.
The Linked Data Manager is included in the Synaptica Version 8.0 release as an optional feature. Please let us know if you would like to schedule a demonstration and discussion about how this new tool may benefit your taxonomy projects. If you are already using Linked Data, then we’d like to hear from you so we can ensure that your use-cases are incorporated into our ongoing product development roadmap.
We look forward to hearing from you with any comments or questions!
