O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Ontology-driven editing

Group projects Steve Pepper

[email protected]

Oslo University College, 2007-10-20 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Course agenda

       Week 37 – 09-08 Week 38 – 09-15 Week 39 – 09-22 Week 42 – 10-13

Week 43 – 10-20

Week 46 – 11-10 Week 48 – 11-24 Introduction to Topic Maps – Part 1 Creating a topic map Introduction to Topic Maps – Part 2 Modelling issues (LTM)

Ontology-driven editing

(Semantic Web) (Ontologies) 

Terminology:

– Topic Maps: The technology and the standard – topic maps: The artefacts (documents) we create www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Today’s 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 groups and discuss subject domains www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Ontology-driven editing

www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

What is ontology?

(philosophy)

“In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek

ον

= being and

λόγος

= 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 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

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_science)

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 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

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

www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

How to use Ontopoly

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Read the Ontopoly User Guide!

• • It will save you a lot of grief in the long run http://localhost:8080/ontopoly

0

/doc/user-guide.html

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 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Demo: Creating a topic map

www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

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) www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Some comments on Ontopoly

    

Takes a little getting used to

– But it’s 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 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

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 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Groups

A. Phuong, Nga, Szu-Ping B. Andrea, Juan-Daniel, Mehrnoosh, Sara

DILL Program

C. Pussadee, Roriana, Wachiraporn

Nobel Prizes

D. Nickson, Florence, Monica

Topic Maps Bibliography

E. Alice, Barulaganye, Esther

African Writers

F. Muluken, Yibeltal

Topic Maps Tools

G. Anja, Clara, Kanita, Trude H. Isaac, Wilfred

African Football (?)

I.

Christian

Whisky

www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

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 IFLA’s 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 don’t 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.

www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Home assignment

   

Form a group of 2 –4 people

– – – Decide on a domain for a topic map Delimit its scope – i.e., what’s in and what’s 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 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

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 www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

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/ontology.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?

www.ontopedia.net

O N T O P E D I A

The Identity of Everything

Next lecture

  

Monday October 27 Same time, same place Agenda

–

Identity

–

Ontologies

–

Project review

www.ontopedia.net