The practical relevance of CPOV with respect to the W3C ontology of organizations is that it introduces some useful attributes and associations, such as hasContactPoint, logo, and address. However, in the present CPOV version, these associations are attached to cpov:PublicOrganization, while they might be applied to all organizations. The need of being able to use such associations is especially relevant if we need to model organizational units of a Public Organization such as offices and departments. But since the notion of organizational unit adopted by the CPOV is taken from the W3C ontology of organizations, which models org:OrganizationalUnit as a subclass of org:Organization, there is no way to attach a ContactPoint or an Address to to an Organisational Unit.
Suggested fix: introduce a cpov:Organization that specialises org:Organization by attaching it those associations (originally attached to cpov:PublicOrganization) that have a more general nature, such as, in particular, hasContactPoint, logo, and address. In this way, cpov:PublicOrganization would be a subclass of cpov:Organization, which in turn would be a subclass of org:Organization.
Note: the only association which seems to be more or less typical of PublicOrganization is dct:spatial, which points to AdministrativeTerritorialUnits. However, strictly speaking, only public administrations (and not all public organizations) do have an administrative territorial unit. So, perhaps a further PublicAdministration class should be introduced as a specialization of PublicOrganization.
Best,
Nicola Guarino
ISTC-CNR, Trento
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