Semantic equivalence (computing)

In computer metadata, semantic equivalence is a declaration that two data elements from different vocabularies contain data that has similar meaning. There are three types of semantic equivalence statements:

• Class or concept equivalence. A statement that two high level concepts have similar or equivalent meaning.
• Property or attribute equivalence. A statement that two properties, descriptors or attributes of classes have similar meaning.
• Instance equivalence. A statement that two instances of data are the same or refer to the same instance.

Assume that there are two organizations, each having a separate data dictionary. The first organization has a data element entry:

 <DataElement>
    <Name>PersonFamilyName</Name>
    <Definition>The name of a person shared with other members of their family.</Definition>
 <DataElement>

and a second organization has a data dictionary with a data element with the following entry:

 <DataElement>
    <Name>IndividualLastName</Name>
    <Definition>The name of an individual person shared with other members of their family.</Definition>
 <DataElement>

these two data elements can be considered to have the same meaning and can be marked as semantically equivalent.

• Logical equivalence
• Metadata
• Vocabulary-based transformation
• Web Ontology Language (OWL)

• World Wide Web OWL Language Reference
• Universal Data Element Framework Web Site Semantic Equivalency for Standards and Integrations

• OWL definition of Class Equivalency
• OWL definition of Property Equivalency