Topic Maps  - Topic Maps

This International Standard provides a standardized notation for interchangeably representing information about the structure of information resources used to define topics, and the relationships between topics. A set of one or more interrelated documents that employs the notation defined by this International Standard is called a "topic map". In general, the structural information conveyed by topic maps includes:

• groupings of addressable information objects around topics (occurrences), and
• relationships between topics (associations).

A topic map defines a multidimensional topic space - a space in which the locations are topics, and in which the distances between topics are measurable in terms of the number of intervening topics which must be visited in order to get from one topic to another, and the kinds of relationships that define the path from one topic to another, if any, through the intervening topics, if any.

In addition, information objects can have properties, as well as values for those properties, assigned to them externally. These properties are called "facet types".

Several topic maps can provide topical structure information about the same information resources. The Topic Maps architecture is designed to facilitate merging topic maps without requiring the merged topic maps to be copied or modified. Because of their extrinsic character, topic maps can be thought of as "overlays" on, or extensions to, sets of information objects

The base notation of Topic Maps is SGML; an interchangeable topic map always consists of at least one SGML document, and it may include and/or refer to other kinds information resources. A set of information resources that comprise a complete interchangeable topic map can be specified using the bounded object set (BOS) facility defined by the HyTime architecture in ISO/IEC 10744:1997.

Extrait de [ recommandation Topic Maps: Information Technology -- Document Description and Markup Languages]

Voir aussi XTM.