Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model, ProvKOS, for tracking the provenance of change activities in a Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS). By extending current provenance practices, this model represents dynamic changes in a KOS more effectively.
Design/methodology/approach: We take a 5-step approach to develop the conceptual model, including content analysis of KOS editorial data, environmental scan of existing provenance models, development of persona-specific provenance questions, and a participatory design with stakeholders to ensure the model's utility.
Findings: We introduce: (1) a taxonomy of editorial activities for a KOS; (2) a conceptual model ProvKOS, which extends existing models PROV and SKOS. We also provide detailed data dictionaries for the entities, activities, and warrants classes proposed in the model. A use case on 'Gender Dysphoria' in Dewey Decimal Classifications is provided to illustrate the implementation of ProvKOS. This shows ProvKOS's ability to capture KOS changes effectively, and to link external resources relating to the changes.
Originality: The proposed model is novel in two ways: one, its ability to represent dynamic change activities in a KOS which has not been discussed anywhere else; two, it supports the inter-connectivity across KOSs by providing a 'Warrant' class to substantiate the context of changes.
*Both authors contributed equally to this work.