Topincs - A RESTful web service interface for topic maps

Abstract

Topincs is a RESTful web service interface for retrieval and manipulation of topic maps. It allows the creation and publication of information in a way that is understandable by humans as well as computers. To accomplish this, it uses the Topic Maps Data Model and overcomes the weakness of HTML documents where most of the meaning is buried in natural language and invisible for computers to act upon. The items of a topic map are exposed and identified through URLs and manipulated with the HTTP methods. The Topincs Interface is implemented in a software product for authoring, storing and publishing topic maps, called the Topincs Server which comes with a web based editor. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.