Topic Maps

Definition

Topic Maps provide a standardized way to represent and interchange knowledge through the modeling of abstract concepts (called topics), the relationships among topics (called associations), and the connection between abstract concepts and real-world resources (called occurrences). By distinguishing the high-level topic space from real-world resources, Topic Maps may be used both as a semantic map among related concepts (in the topic space) and as a way to describe real-world resources (through occurrence mapping from the topic space into the resource space). Topic Maps have been formally standardized by the international standards body ISO.

Historical Background

The pre-cursors of what are now known as Topic Maps began in the early 1990s with an effort to merge independently created and maintained indexes for information sharing. This early work motivated the need for a more general and more useful knowledge description meta framework. By 1999, the original ISO standard for...