This is a survey of the existing proposals, formal or informal, graphical notations for Topic Maps information. Level 0 (instance) and level 1 (schema) proposals are listed separately, given how different in nature these notations must be.
The editors would appreciate being informed about any notations that are not listed.
A proposal created by Graham Moore and Steve Pepper around 2001. Documented in professor Lee's survey, slides 12-18. (Also has a level 1 part; see below.)
Peter P. Jones proposed a grid-like graphical notation in this blog entry.
Professor Jaeho Lee put forward a strawman level 0 proposal at the Oslo ISO meeting in March 2007. This proposal is currently not available on the web.
A proposal created by Graham Moore and Steve Pepper around 2001. Documented in professor Lee's survey, slides 12-16.
At Extreme Markup 2003 Kal Ahmed proposed using UML to model Topic Maps ontologies. This is described in his paper.
Are Gulbrandsen proposed using Object Role Modelling (ORM) to model Topic Maps ontologies at TMRA 2005. His proposal can be seen in the presentation and in the paper.
At the Leipzig ISO meeting in October 2006 Inge Henriksen proposed a notation of his own.
A number of informal ad-hoc notations have been in use by consultants working on Topic Maps projects. Some examples of these have been collected here in the hope that they can serve as useful guides to what has actually been in practical use. All of the notations are level 1 notations.
Lars Marius Garshol has been using a simple informal ad-hoc notation in many customer projects over the past few years. Below are some examples of its use:
Åsmund Mæhle drew a diagram of the Grep ontology on a whiteboard using a simple notation.
Andreas Johnsen documented the ontology used for the politics sections of the web sites for the Hadsel and Vestvågøy counties in Norway. To do this he used a simple ad-hoc notation.
Stian Danenbarger has been using an informal notation for ontology development for several years. Waiting for permission to publish.
Kal Ahmed and Graham Moore have been using a notation for ontology development, but unfortunately no examples have been made available yet.
