Ontologydriven editing Group projects

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Ontology-driven editingGroup projects

• Steve Pepper
• pepper.steve_at_gmail.com
• Oslo University College, 2007-10-20

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Course agenda

• Week 37 09-08 Introduction to Topic Maps Part
  1
• Week 38 09-15 Creating a topic map
• Week 39 09-22 Introduction to Topic Maps Part
  2
• Week 42 10-13 Modelling issues (LTM)
• Week 43 10-20 Ontology-driven editing
• Week 46 11-10 (Semantic Web)
• Week 48 11-24 (Ontologies)

• Terminology
• Topic Maps The technology and the standard
• topic maps The artefacts (documents) we create

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Todays agenda

• Review of personal topic maps
• Identity (see slides from 3rd lecture)
• Ontology-driven editing
• Discussion of group projects
• Please use the breaks to finalize groupsand
  discuss subject domains

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Ontology-driven editing
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What is ontology? (philosophy)

• In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek ??
  being and ????? word/speech) is the most
  fundamental branch of metaphysics. It studies
  being or existence as well as the basic
  categories thereof trying to find out what
  entities and what types of entities exist.
  Ontology has strong implications for the
  conceptions of reality.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology
• Originally a branch of metaphysics (or
  philosophy)
• The study of being, or existence
• Founded by Plato and Aristotle
• Deals with questions such as
• What exists? (for example, does the idea of a
  horse exist?)
• What are subjects, objects, and their
  relationships?
• Has a specialized meaning in informatics
• Among other things, it is possible to talk of an
  ontology

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What is an ontology? (informatics)

• In both computer science and information
  science, an ontology is a data model that
  represents a set of concepts within a domain and
  the relationships between those concepts. It is
  used to reason about the objects within that
  domain. Ontologies are used in artificial
  intelligence, the semantic web, software
  engineering, biomedical informatics and
  information architecture as a form of knowledge
  representation about the world or some part of
  it.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(computer_sc
  ience)
• Used (and abused) to mean almost any form of
  conceptual classification scheme
• Ranges from simple type hierarchies to more
  complex models should also include other
  semantic relations describing relationships
  between concepts
• In Topic Maps an ontology is
• The set of typing topics that is used within a
  topic map, or that defines a class of topic maps
• In the Semantic Web ontologies means OWL
• Web Ontology Language

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What is ontology-driven editing?

• A user-friendly way to create topic maps!
• The principle is simple
• The ontology describes what kind of things can
  exist in the topic map
• It also includes constraints on
• Which types of statement are used with which
  types of topics
• What cardinality they have
• Based on this, the interface is automatically
  configured for data entry
• The benefits
• Easier user interface no need to understand
  syntax
• More consistent topic maps
• Ontopoly is such an editor

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How to use Ontopoly

• Read the Ontopoly User Guide!
• It will save you a lot of grief in the long run
• http//localhost8080/ontopoly0/doc/user-guide.htm
  l
• Start the program from OKS Samplers
• Open an existing Ontopoly topic map
• Import an existing non-Ontopoly topic map
• Or create a new topic map
• Use the Description tab to describe the topic map
• Also to validate it and a few other things
• Use the Ontology tab to define the ontology
• topic types, type hierarchy, association types,
  role types, name types, occurrence types
• fields (names, identifiers, occurrences, and
  associations) that apply to each topic type,
  their order and cardinality
• Use the Instances tab to populate the data
• Uses an automatically configured forms-based
  interface

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Demo Creating a topic map
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Some tips on ontology creation

• When starting a new Ontopoly topic map
• Sketch out the basic ontology on paper before
  using Ontopoly
• Create the type hierarchy first. Keep it simple.
• Create association types and role types (where
  necessary)
• Specify what the role-playing topic types are
• Create occurrence types and name types
• Go to each topic type in turn, starting at the
  top of each type hierarchy, and assign additional
  fields
• Make sure you are satisfied with the ontology
  before you add too much data, otherwise it can be
  a lot of work to change things
• When importing an existing non-Ontopoly topic map
• Check name types and occurrence types first
• Then check association types (and role types)
• Then check each topic type in turn (top down)

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Some comments on Ontopoly

• Takes a little getting used to
• But its well worth the effort
• Does not (yet) support scope or variant names
• Use typed names instead of scoped names
• Does not allow topics to have multiple types
• Except for supertypes
• Includes system information in the topic map
• The topic map can be exported without this
  information
• It can be hidden in the Omnigator
• Customize ? Nontopoly model
• Important points to remember
• Clicking on any link submits the HTML form, but
  does not save to disk
• You MUST click on the Save button regularly

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Deciding on the domain

• Criteria
• The domain should interest all the members and
  should help to add some value in terms of
  knowledge sharing
• Content and information resources about the
  domain should be available
• The associations in the topic map shall provide
  new and valuable information, as in the example
  of all the dead men in Milan, in the Opera topic
  map
• There should be a domain expert in our group
• The topic map could be developed later as a
  portal
• Think associative richness!
• Some domains lend themselves better to this than
  others

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Groups

• Phuong, Nga, Szu-Ping
• Andrea, Juan-Daniel, Mehrnoosh, SaraDILL Program
• Pussadee, Roriana, WachirapornNobel Prizes
• Nickson, Florence, MonicaTopic Maps Bibliography

• Alice, Barulaganye, EstherAfrican Writers
• Muluken, YibeltalTopic Maps Tools
• Anja, Clara, Kanita, Trude
• Isaac, WilfredAfrican Football (?)
• ChristianWhisky

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Some thesis ideas

• Bibliographic languages in a Topic Maps
  perspective
• General overview but with more detail than
  presented here
• Topic Maps and thesauri
• Dig into the details of the thesaurus standards
  and develop an ontology for representing them as
  topic maps
• Topic Maps and MARC
• Develop an ontology for representing MARC records
  as TMs
• Topic Maps and FRBR
• Investigate the relationship of Topic Maps to
  IFLAs Functional Requirements for Bibliographic
  Records
• Topic Maps and faceted search
• Show how the ideas of faceted search can be
  applied through topic maps and examine the
  efficacy of web sites that do this
• Topic Maps and subject classification systems
• What are the benefits of using TMs, e.g. with
  multiple systems?
• Real world library applications of Topic Maps
• In depth case study of a particular application,
  e.g. Kongelig Bibliotek (Royal Danish Library),
  New Zealand Electronic Text Centre

• Modelling knowledge with Topic Maps
• Discuss issues relating to modelling knowledge
  with Topic Maps, and some common errors that
  people make. Cover as much ground as possible,
  but dont go into too much depth. (Use our first
  LTM topic maps as base material?)
• The Problem of Names in Topic Maps
• Investigate the purpose of typed names, scoped
  names and variant names. Look into how they are
  supported and used today, and propose conventions
  for when to use what.
• Roles in Topic Maps and elsewhere
• Compare the notion of association roles with
  roles in other paradigms, including ORM and UML
  in data modelling, thematic roles in linguistics,
  and the treatment of roles in knowledge
  representation paradigms such as Conceptual
  Graphs.
• Hierarchical Relationship Types
• Investigate different forms of hierarchical
  structure i knowledge organization (including
  type and various forms of partitive) and propose
  PSIs sets for expressing them in Topic Maps.
• Topic Maps Usability Study
• Compare a Topic Maps-driven web site with a web
  site that is not based on Topic Maps and identify
  the key differences in terms of structure,
  navigation, searching, maintenance, connectivity,
  etc.

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Home assignment

• Form a group of 24 people
• Decide on a domain for a topic map
• Delimit its scope i.e., whats in and whats
  out
• Start small, you can always extend it later
• Send me a short description by email with names
  of group members
• Deadline October 22
• Design the basic ontology on paper as a group
• Topic types, type hierarchy, association types
• Keep it really simple (KISS) to begin with
• Deadline October 26
• Create the initial ontology in Ontopoly
• Min. 12 TTs, 8 ATs, 10 OTs. Send to me by email.
• Deadline October 26
• Start to populate the topic map
• Do not proceed too quickly
• Make a note of any issues that arise for
  discussion in class

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Identifiers

• Use an identifier for every typing topic
• Use the prefix http//psi.ontopedia.net/
• Reuse existing identifiers wherever possible
• Choice of suffix for topic types and role types
• A short name, preferably the same as Wikipedia
  uses
• Start with a capital letter accented letters are
  OK
• Replace spaces by underscores
• Examples Composer, Fairy_tale, Work_of_art,
  Place
• For association types, occurrence types and name
  types
• Use a verb (association types) or a noun
  (occurrence and name types)
• Start with a lower-case letter (to indicate a
  property)
• Examples composed_by, date_of_birth, given_name

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More tips for your ontology

• Provide a description for every topic type
• Give a short definition
• Comments (if necessary) on the way in which the
  type is (intended to be) used in the topic map
• For examples of recommended best practice
• Refer to the Norwegian Opera Topic Map
• See http//www.ontopedia.net/NorwegianOpera/ontolo
  gy.jsp
• Use the Omnigator version listed under Topic Maps
  at www.ontopedia.net
• Download it to your machine using the Export
  plug-in
• This query lists all subject identifiers for
  typing topics
• select TYPE, SID from
• instance-of(T, TYPE) type(T, TYPE) ,
• subject-identifier(TYPE, SID)
• order by TYPE?

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Next lecture

• Monday October 27
• Same time, same place
• Agenda
• Identity
• Ontologies
• Project review