This is a profile of the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) that constrains SKOS use with simple rules such as once Concept Scheme per vocabulary and per file and ensure basic catalogue metadata is present.
It is intended for managing sets of basic categorisation vocabularies in catalogues.
By profile, what is meant here is:
"A specification that constrains, extends, combines, or provides guidance or explanation about the usage of other specifications"
In this case, the other specification are SKOS and schema.org and, in legacy mode, DCMI Metadata Terms (DCTERMS)
This profile is formulated according to The Profiles Vocabulary and provides Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) validator files that can be used to determine whether vocabularies conform to this profile.
This profile is hosted online in Linked Data form using a persistent web address:
For an overview of all the elements of this Profile, see the Profile Definition:
For all the Profile's rules, see the Specification:
For the technical SHACL validator, see:
This code is licensed using the CC BY 4.0 licence. See the LICENSE file for the deed.
Note Citation below for attribution.
To cite this profile, please use the following (formulated in BibTex):
@software{vocpub-profile,
author = {{Nicholas J. Car}},
title = {{Vocabulary Publication Profile}},
version = {5.4},
date = {2026},
publisher = {{Australian Government Linked Data Working Group}},
url = {https://linked.data.gov.au/def/vocpub}
}
publisher:
Australian Government Linked Data Working Group
https://www.linked.data.gov.au
creator:
Dr Nicholas J. Car
Honorary Lecturer
Australian National University
nicholas.car@anu.edu.au
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8742-7730
https://cecs.anu.edu.au/people/nicholas-car