skos:editorialNote

Document notes

SKOS has more types of notes for concepts than ISO 2788: scope notes, definition notes, history notes, etc. These properties can be extended to fit specific requirements.

Semantic relationships are crucial for the definition of concepts, as many KOS guidelines emphasize. However, next to these structured characterizations, concepts sometimes have to be further defined using human-readable (“informal”) documentation, such as scope notes or definitions.

SKOS provides a skos:note property for general documentation purposes. Inspired by existing KOS guidelines, such as ISO 2788 or BS 8723-2, this property specializes skos:scopeNote, skos:definition, skos:example and skos:historyNote to suit more specific documentation types.

SKOS includes two specializations of skos:note that are useful for KOS managers or editors: skos:editorialNote and skos:changeNote.

skos:editorialNote provides information that is an aid to administrative management, such as reminders of editorial work that remains to be done, or notices in case of future editorial changes.

skos:changeNote documents fine-grained changes to a concept, for administration and maintenance purposes.

Importantly, the hierarchical link between skos:note and its different specializations allows retrieving all the documentation associated with a concept in a simple way. Each skos:definition is a skos:note, each skos:scopeNote is a skos:note, and so on.