How Data is Stored in Holons

The Capish Holon is one of the most central concepts at Capish – it is the data container all systems are built on. What is truly unique about the holons, is that they not only contain data but also all relevant metadata required to understand and interpret the data.

Using the structure and relationships of the holons, the user can always find and explore all the data through, for example, free-text searches, filtering and database navigation. The holons are embodied in standard xml-formats which makes them integrative, future proof and ready for digital archiving.

With this in mind, it makes sense to pause for a second and look at the etymology behind the theories of holism. In ancient Greek philosophy a holon was used to describe something that was whole in itself, but simultaneously also larger than itself and thereby even more complete.

Hand in hand with this metaphor, the Capish Holons are designed to be big enough to be self-contained but also small enough to serve as standardized pieces of information in the Capish Information Graph. Every Capish Holon matches a concept used within the respective knowledge discipline being described. The holons contains both detailed content in form of well-defined fields, as well as rich context by having named relationships to other holons.

These fields and relationships are annotated by the Capish Ontology, designed to describe all content for both man and machine through the end-solution Capish Reflect®.