Julian Mosen
Petra Schubert
Susan Williams
01/2020
The Social Document Ontology (SocDOnt) expresses the generic structure of social documents.
Social documents are user-generated digital artefacts, created for collaboration and communication among employees. Typical examples are wiki articles or blog posts including comments, attachments, tags or recommendations.
SocDOnt makes use of concepts from existing ontologies, such as the SIOC ontology, its extension SIOCT and the Task Management Ontology and introduces new concepts, necessary for a more detailed description of social documents within enterprise collaboration systems.
https://ceir.de
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
SocDOnt - Social Document Ontology
1.0
/1.0#Attachment
The Attachment is one of the IntellectualComponents and describes an appendage of intellectual content to an IntellectualEntity or to a Comment.
/1.0#Attachment
Attachment
/1.0#BlogPost
BlogPosts belong to the IntellectualEntities and thus describe entries that are posted in blogs.
/1.0#BlogPost
BlogPost
/1.0#BoardPost
BoardPosts belong to the IntellectualEntities and thus describe entries that are made in message boards, also called forums. Responses to BoardPosts are called Comments, since they, as an IntellectualComponents, extend SocialDocuments.
/1.0#BoardPost
BoardPost
/1.0#Collection
A Collection is a set of at least two SocialDocuments, which is used to group SocialDocuments. Collections can be used to represent hierarchical structures through the child and parent relations.
/1.0#Collection
Collection
/1.0#Comment
The Comment entity is an IntellectualComponent that contains intellectual content about Attachments or IntellectualEntities.
/1.0#Comment
Comment
/1.0#Component
The Component entity is an abstract class that is used to assign an IntellectualEntity to each of the subclasses IntellectualComponent and SimpleComponent. Accordingly, this class only supports the "bundling" of the sub-classes.
/1.0#Component
Component
/1.0#Container
The container entity serves as a superclass for the various subordinate classes, which in turn can contain the various forms of IntellectualEntities. With the containers, just as with the Collections, nested structures can be created through the child-parent relations. The concept is always assigned to a Space and contains SocialDocuments whose IntellectualEntities correspond to the same type. Containers can be created automatically by the application or manually by the user.
/1.0#Container
Container
/1.0#File
A file is used to represent files that have been created within or uploaded to a collaboration system. Files that are to be assigned to other IntellectualEntities are excluded.
/1.0#File
File
/1.0#Folder
Folders serve as a parent structure for files.
/1.0#Folder
Folder
/1.0#GroupWorkspace
GroupWorkspaces describe spaces that are accessible to several people. Thus, they are positioned between UserWorkspace and OrganisationalPlatform and enable collaborative work, since they include the respective containers.
/1.0#GroupWorkspace
GroupWorkspace
/1.0#IntellectualComponent
Attachments and Comments are subordinated to the IntellectualComponent entity. These differ from SimpleComponents by their "intellectual content".
/1.0#IntellectualComponent
IntellectualComponent
/1.0#IntellectualEntity
IntellectualEntities describe the core of a SocialDocument, for example a file or a BlogPost, which can be enriched by Components.
/1.0#IntellectualEntity
IntellectualEntity
/1.0#Item
Through the item entity, all properties that are consistent for the components of a social document are bundled. For this reason, the object properties are of a general nature and yet each represent a single piece of social content. The Item also serves to provide the link to the actual SocialDocument, which consists of at least one IntellectualEntity.
/1.0#Item
Item
/1.0#Like
The entity Like, which is also called "recommendation", is a SimpleComponent, which can be related to an IntellectualComponent or an IntellectualEntity. Since they have no inherent intellectual content, they, as all SimpleComponents, are not mutually related. Since a like within SocDOnt can only refer to IntellectualEntities, it is not possible to represent the "liking" of a container.
/1.0#Like
Like
/1.0#MessageBoard
MessageBoards are often called "forums" within ECS and contain any number of BoardPosts. This Container type can therefore contain several IntellectualEntities. The contained answers to the original message in the MessageBoard are represented accordingly by Comments.
/1.0#MessageBoard
MessageBoard
/1.0#MicroBlog
The Microblog, like the MessageBoard, is a container. The entity can contain MicroblogPosts, whose responses within the SocDOnt are called Comments.
/1.0#MicroBlog
MicroBlog
/1.0#MicroblogPost
MicroblogPosts are among the IntellectualEntities and are contained in microblogs. As with the other IntellectualEntities, replies are represented in the form of Comments.
/1.0#MicroblogPost
MicroblogPost
/1.0#OrganisationalPlatform
The OrganisationalPlatform entity describes a space that is accessible to all participants of the system.
/1.0#OrganisationalPlatform
OrganisationalPlatform
/1.0#SimpleComponent
SimpleComponents add further data (Likes and Tags) to IntellectualComponents or IntellectualEntities. With the exception of the Tag, these types of Components do not carry any other data properties and thus no intellectual content. Because of their lack of intellectual content, Tags and Likes can never be associated with each other or with any other instance of themselves. This is because tagging a tag, liking a like, or tagging a like makes no sense. While liking a tag would be conceivable, it is a very atypical use case. In some ECS, it is possible to also liken a space or container, but in the context of SocDOnt, the focus is on applying these components to SocialDocuments.
/1.0#SimpleComponent
SimpleComponent
/1.0#SocialDocument
The SocialDocument represents, as the name of the ontology already indicates, a central element of SocDOnt. This "compound document" (Williams, Mosen and Schubert, 2020, p. 3) is composed of IntellectualEntity, IntellectualComponents and SimpleComponents. Only the IntellectualEntity is mandatory. The SocialDocument is assigned to the same container as the corresponding IntellectualEntity. For the SocialDocument, no distinction is made within the SocDOnt as to whether this already originally has "social content" (collaboratively created content) (for example, a WikiArticle edited by two authors) or only becomes such through Components (for example, in the case of a PDF or Word file). Hausmann (2018, p. 210) calls these different forms "born social" and "become social" and refers to Hodge (2000), who first described documents that are created and distributed in electronic form in this way.
/1.0#SocialDocument
SocialDocument
/1.0#Space
The types of Spaces describe the different areas in which social content is created (Williams, Mosen, and Schubert, 2020). The different container types are assigned to the Spaces.
/1.0#Space
Space
/1.0#Tag
Tags belong to SimpleComponents and include a label that identifies the tag. Tags are used to describe IntellectualComponents or IntellectualEntities more detailed.
/1.0#Tag
Tag
/1.0#Task
The Task entity belongs to the IntellectualEntities and describes a task. These tasks can be organized in hierarchical structures, since parent-child relations are given. Subordinate tasks can also be called subtasks, but they follow the same structure as parent tasks.
/1.0#Task
Task
/1.0#TaskContainer
The container type TaskContainer can hold any number of tasks. TaskContainers are unambiguously assigned to a Space.
/1.0#TaskContainer
TaskContainer
/1.0#UserWorkspace
The UserWorkspace serves as a space that is only accessible to a specific user. Thus, this type of space represents the counterpart to an organizational platform, which is accessible to all users.
/1.0#UserWorkspace
UserWorkspace
/1.0#Weblog
Weblogs are regularly referred to as "blogs" within ECS and contain any number of BlogPosts. This container can therefore contain several IntellectualEntities. The contained replies to the original message in the weblog are Comments.
/1.0#Weblog
Weblog
/1.0#Wiki
Wikis serve as containers for WikiArticles and are subordinate to the concept of Spaces. Containers of this type can also hold multiple IntellectualEntities.
/1.0#Wiki
Wiki
/1.0#WikiArticle
WikiArticles correspond to the entries in a wiki. Within a wiki, they are usually represented as a separate "page". Replies to a WikiArticle are mapped to the Comment entity. Attachments, which are not part of the actual content, are called Attachment.
/1.0#WikiArticle
WikiArticle