Martin Schouten wrote:
Dear mailing list readers,
My name is Martin Schouten and I am a graduate student at Utrecht University
in the Netherlands. I am following a master course called Business
Informatics, and soon I will doing my thesis. However, I first have to
complete another task, which is doing a little research for a lecturer at
our faculty. The research topic is (surprise surprise) topic maps. More
specifically, I want to know if there are (commercial) tools that support so
called (by me) "situational Topic Maps", which is nothing more that a view
on a topic map for a specific situation (i.e. a project outcome for some
client). This concept linked to the notion of situational methods, which are
methods (practices, techniques, procedures etc.) for a specific situation.
I know a little bit about topic maps, since I followed some courses which
involved XML, RDF and TM theory.
Martin,
If you've been following any of the recent discussions here on ontologies
or subject identity, then you might note that *all* Topic Maps are by
definition situational. There cannot exist a Topic Map that is not bound
by its situation, in other words, a "universal" Topic Map. So perhaps if
you were to provide more details on what you mean by "situational" (as in
the situational calculus?) we'd have more to go on.
To get to the point of the story: I need to know what commercial
applications or tools exist that support a view of a topic map for a certain
situation. Now, I find a lot of interesting information on Topic Maps and
research related to it, I know that the ISO created the Topic Map Standard
(and topicmap.org makes the XML based XTM specification), that the W3
created RDF (and it's "ontology-extensions" DAML+OIL), but everything still
seems to be in a research and experimental phase. There are hardly any
companies promoting the use of topic map solutions. The only ones I keep
finding are Ontopia, Moresophy, Empolis and Mondeca.
As someone who doesn't represent any of those companies, I can say that
they all provide very high quality commercial Topic Map applications, as
well as consultancies providing implementations for specific needs. This
goes beyond what might be considered "research" and "experimental." The
kind of work I'm doing is in that category, but the existing Topic Map
vendors (and several others) have been providing commercial-quality TM
tools for a number of years.
Do you anything about their products apart from the things they mention on
their websites? Till now, I find the Ontopia site the most informative. If
you anything else that may help me, I would be very happy if you would share
it with me.
I can't provide you with a product overview of each company's suite of
tools, as I've not done a detailed comparison. But their web sites (so
far as I've seen) do provide a fairly detailed description of the kinds
of tools they provide, and I'm certain that each company can provide
any further information you need on exactly what each product does. You
may also find http://www.easytopicmaps.com/ helpful, as a wiki containing
lots of information on tools, people, projects, etc. It does provide a
list of both free and commercial products.
Well, thanks in advance and I hope you can help me!
Good luck on your research!
Sincerely,
Martin Schouten
Ps: Murray, thanks for your response to this e-mail today!
Is this a pre-thank-you, assuming I would? (I must stop being
so predictable...)
Murray
......................................................................
Murray Altheim http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK .
[International terrorism] is a fantasy that has been exaggerated
and distorted by politicians. It is a dark illusion that has
spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the
security services, and the international media. In an age when
all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear of a phantom
enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."
The making of the terror myth, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html
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