Overview — Concepts Module
What is the Concepts module?
Section titled “What is the Concepts module?”The Concepts module manages statistical concepts and collections of concepts used across INSEE’s statistical production process. It provides a controlled vocabulary that ensures consistent terminology across surveys, classifications, and publications.
Key business objects
Section titled “Key business objects”Concept (skos:Concept)
Section titled “Concept (skos:Concept)”A Concept represents a statistical notion — a definition that can be referenced by other metadata objects. Each Concept carries:
- Labels — a preferred label and optional alternative labels in French and English
- Notes — definition, scope note, editorial note, change history
- Lifecycle metadata — creation date, modification date, validity period, version
- Ownership — creator stamp, contributor stamps, dissemination status
- Relationships — broader/narrower hierarchy, related concepts, matches to external vocabularies, succession links
A Concept can be in two states: draft (being edited) or validated/published (visible to all users).
Collection (skos:Collection)
Section titled “Collection (skos:Collection)”A Collection groups related Concepts under a common theme or scope. It carries its own labels, description, and ownership metadata. Collections are used to organise and navigate large sets of concepts.
Role in the statistical metadata lifecycle
Section titled “Role in the statistical metadata lifecycle”Concepts are a foundational layer: they are referenced by operations, series, variables, and classifications. Defining and maintaining a shared concept catalogue reduces duplication and improves consistency across the statistical production chain.
Data storage
Section titled “Data storage”Concepts and Collections are stored as RDF triples in GraphDB, in the concepts/definitions named graph, using the SKOS vocabulary augmented with Dublin Core, INSEE-specific predicates, and XKOS.
See the RDF Data Model for the full predicate reference.