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Towards Seamless Knowledge

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Title: Towards Seamless Knowledge


1
Towards Seamless Knowledge
  • Integrating Public Sector Portals in Norway

Topic MapsPublished SubjectsTMRAP
Steve Pepper Chief Strategy Officer,
Ontopiapepper_at_ontopia.net
2
Introduction
  • Steve Pepper
  • Convenor of ISO Topic Maps committee
  • Editor of XML Topic Maps 1.0 (XTM)
  • Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Ontopia
  • Ontopia
  • The Oracle of Topic Maps
  • A vendor of Topic Maps software products
  • The Ontopia Knowledge Suite (OKS)
  • The Omnigator and the Omnirapper
  • This presentation
  • Seamless Knowledge
  • The Advent of Semantic Portals in Norway
  • Published Subjects
  • Topic Rapping with TMRAP

On'topia, 1999.f. Gr. onto- (being) Gr.
topos (place) see -IA.I. An imaginary world
in which knowledge is well organized.II. A
company that provides tools to help you realize
your own Ontopia.
3
What is Topic Maps?
  • Topic Maps is an ISO standard for Knowledge
    Integration
  • It is the only international standard for
    Knowledge Integration
  • But the more important question is

4
What are Topic Maps used for?
  • Thats like asking What are relational databases
    used for?
  • The answer is A whole number of things,
    including(but not limited to)
  • Organizing large bodies of information
  • Capturing corporate memory
  • Representing complex rules and processes
  • Supporting concept-based eLearning
  • Enabling Enterprise Knowledge Integration (EKI)
  • But in particular
  • Any or all of the above, in combination!
  • Topic Maps lets you achieve Seamless Knowledge

5
Seamless Knowledge
  • General business problem addressed by Topic Maps
  • The disconnectedness of Information and Knowledge
  • Seamless Knowledge
  • A term coined within the Topic Maps community to
    describe the business benefits of applying Topic
    Maps
  • There is growing awareness of the scale of this
    problem
  • Increased talk about metadata, taxonomies,
    ontologies, and semantics
  • The META Group talks of a near-impending crisis
  • What people are looking for is knowledge
    integration i.e., Seamless Knowledge
  • Topic Maps offers a standards-based solution
  • Seamless Knowledge is not the same as the
    Semantic Web
  • But there is some overlap and even more potential
    synergy

6
Semantic Portals
  • One of many applications of Topic Maps
  • Topic Maps is an ideal model for portals and
    other forms of web-based information delivery
  • The basic concept is to have the topic map drive
    the portal
  • Not just a navigational layer on top of something
    else
  • The very structure of the portal is a topic map
  • All content is organized around topics
    (subject-centric organization)
  • Each page represents a topic (we call this a
    Topic Page)
  • Topics act as points of collocation
  • They provide a one-stop shop for everything
    that is known about a particular subject
  • Navigating the portal Navigating the topic map
  • Associations provide very intuitive navigation
    (As we may think)

7
A Topic Page
8
Architecture of a Topic Maps Portal
topicmapappli-cation
topicmap
web server
users
web client
data and documents
9
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10
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11
The Rise and Rise of Semantic Portals in Norway
  • In Norway, this concept has been put into
    practice on a scale that is now verging on the
    industrial
  • There are over a dozen topic map-driven portals
    in production
  • More are on the way
  • And while the rest of the world is asking
    questions like
  • Metadata? Taxonomies? Ontologies?
  • in Norway, customers are saying Topic Maps!
  • RfPs regularly specify Topic Maps as a
    requirement
  • Headhunters are looking for Topic Maps experts
  • 120 people attended the last Topic Maps Congress
    (Norway pop. 4 million)
  • Topic Maps are quickly moving from early
    adopter to early majority
  • How did this situation come about?
  • The presence of Ontopia was important, but not
    enough on its own
  • We needed a high visibility success story as well

12
The ITU Story (in brief)
  • Once upon a time, not long ago (in late 2000),
  • the Network for IT Research and Competence in
    Education (ITU) was planning a new web site
  • They had rather special requirements
  • Relationships between objects and various groups
    of objects offer users multiple paths to the same
    content and stimulate cross-site content
    exploration.
  • Visualisation of this network is supposed to
    give the user a conceptual model of the network,
    and give a feeling of being in a relational
    space.
  • The consultant leading the project was Stian
    Danenbarger
  • At exactly the same time, XTM 1.0 was announced
  • A standardized notation used to define topics,
    and the relationships between topics... A topic
    map defines a multidimensional topic space (in
    which) locations are topics relationships
    define the path from one topic to another.
  • A light bulb went on for Stian
  • Ontopia helped him build an Open Source web-based
    content management and publishing system that was
    entirely driven by topic maps, called ZTM (Zope
    Topic Maps)
  • and ITU got the web site it was looking for

13
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14
The success of ITU started a trend
  • ITU was bleeding edge in early 2001
  • Stian calls it a technical base jump without a
    parachute
  • Such adventures are not for the faint-hearted
  • Since then Topic Maps Portals have become a
    proven and well established technology
  • at least in Norway...
  • ITU was followed by web sites for the Norwegian
    Research Council, the Norwegian Consumers
    Association and many others
  • Some of these are based on ZTM
  • Others are based on other Topic Maps engines
  • At present there are over a dozen, with more on
    the way

15
Some Topic Maps Portals in Norway
  • In production
  • http//www.itu.nohttp//www.luna.itu.no(Ministry
    of Education)
  • http//www.forskning.nohttp//www.nysgjerrigper.n
    o(Research Council of Norway)
  • http//forbrukerportalen.no(Consumers
    Association)
  • http//www.skifte.no(Norwegian Defence)
  • http//www.hoyre.no(Norwegian Conservative
    Party)
  • http//matportalen.no(Ministry of Agriculture)
  • http//www.udi.no(Ministry of Justice)
  • http//www.kulturnett.no(Ministry of Culture)
  • Under development
  • Skatteetaten(Tax Office)
  • Statsministerens kontor(Office of the Prime
    Minister)
  • Statistisk Sentralbyrå(Central Bureau of
    Statistics)
  • IFE/Halden(Nuclear Reactor Project)
  • etc.
  • etc.

16
Towards Seamless Knowledge
  • As the number of portals multiplies, the amount
    of overlap increases
  • Take these three portals as an example
  • forskning.no (Research Council web site aimed at
    young adults)
  • forbrukerportalen.no (Public site of the
    Norwegian Consumer Association)
  • matportalen.no (Biosecurity portal of the
    Department of Agriculture)

17
Genetically modified food at forskning.no
18
Genetically modified food at Forbukerrådet
19
Genetically modified foodstuffs at Matportalen
20
Three Topic Maps Portals One Common Subject
? one virtual portal
with seamless navigation in all directions
21
Towards Seamless Knowledge
  • Very little is required for these portals to
    achieve a simple but effective form of Seamless
    Knowledge
  • They have already achieved subject-centric
    organization of their content
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach
  • From a technical viewpoint, only two additional
    pieces are required to complete the puzzle
  • 1 An identity mechanism
  • To make it possible to know when their subjects
    are the same
  • 2 An exchange protocol
  • To enable information to be requested and
    exchanged automatically
  • (There must also be a real desire to share
    information, but thats a political matter)

22
Piece 1 The Identity Mechanism
  • Simply put
  • How can we know that genetically modified food
    is the same as genetically modified foodstuffs
    (or GM food, or genmodifisert mat, for that
    matter)?
  • One thing is certain Basing this on names wont
    work
  • Synonyms, homonyms and polysemy make names a
    minefield
  • In any case we would like to multilingual
    knowledge integration
  • What is needed is nothing more or less than
    unique, global identifiers for all subjects of
    common interest
  • An impossible task?
  • Not if we go about it the right way
  • In fact, the solution already exists in the form
    of a mechanism developed as part of the Topic
    Maps standard
  • That mechanism is called Published Subjects

23
So what is Published Subjects?
  • An open, distributed mechanism for assigning
    unique, global identifiers to arbitrary subjects
  • Originally conceived as part of the Topic Maps
    effort, but applicability is far more general
  • The mechanism is based on using URLs as
    identifiers
  • e.g. Ibsen Museum in Oslohttp//psi.kultur
    nett.no/museum/ibsen-museet
  • Nothing very special about that, except that
  • The Published Subjects mechanism has two
    interesting characteristics
  • It is two-sided it works for both computers and
    humans
  • It works from the bottom up not from the top
    down
  • Both of these are critically important

24
For computers AND humans
  • Clearly any mechanism has to work for computers
  • In one sense, that is the whole point
  • To make it possible for computers to decide when
    subjects A and B are the same
  • Only then can information be connected correctly
  • Computers can simply compare URLs
  • http//psi.kulturnett.no/museum/ibsen-museet
    http//psi.kulturnett.no/museum/ibsen-museet
    same subject
  • http//psi.kulturnett.no/museum/ibsen-museet
    http//psi.kulturnett.no/museum/ibsen-huset
    not (demonstrably) the same subject
  • But the mechanism must also work for humans
  • Because it is humans who (in the final analysis)
    actually assign the identifiers when structuring
    or classifying their information
  • A human needs to know exactly which is
    represented by a URL such as
  • http//psi.kulturnett.no/museum/ibsen-museet
  • (Is it the Ibsen-museum in Oslo or the Henrik
    Ibsen Museum i Skien?)
  • With PSIs, this can be done quite simply by
    clicking on the URL
  • The result is a document that provides some
    suitably unambiguous, human-interpretable
    indication of the identity of the subject
  • We call this document a subject indicator

25
The dual nature of Published Subjects
  • The issue of identity is two-sided
  • It involves both humans and computers
  • The Published Subjects mechanism is similarly
    two-sided
  • The dual aspects are
  • a subject identifier (URL) used by computers
  • a subject indicator (document) intended for
    humans
  • The identifier is the address of the indicator
  • To understand what the identifier is intended to
    identify, simply click on it!
  • What could be simpler?

26
For computers AND humans
  • A subject is identified via a URL
  • The URL is called a subject identifier
  • Computers use the identifier
  • Simple comparison of string values Identical
    values mean that the subject is the same
  • The URL is the address of a document
  • That document provides a human-interpretable
    indication of the identity of the subject
  • The document is called a subject indicator
  • Humans use the indicator
  • By inspecting the document one can be sure that
    the identifier does not refer to, say, the Henrik
    Ibsen Museum in Skien

27
The concept of Subject Indicators in Topic Maps
  • The identity of most subjects can only be
    established indirectly
  • An information resource (like a definition or a
    picture) can provide some kind of indication of
    the subjects identity to a human
  • Such a resource is called asubject indicator
  • A topic may have multiple subject indicators
  • Because it is a resource, a subject indicator has
    an address, even though the subject that it is
    indicating does not
  • Computers can use the address of the subject
    indicator to establish identity
  • These are called subject identifiers
  • Subject indicators and subject identifiers are
    the two sides of the human-computer dichotomy

28
Ramming the point home Another diagram!
The abbreviation PSI means published subject
indicator,but could equally well mean published
subject identifier
29
From the bottom up open and democratic
  • Earlier top down attempts to create global
    identifiers have largely failed or at least
    only met with moderate success
  • For example, URNs have been around for jonks and
    yet there are still only 17 official URN
    namespaces
  • Perhaps requiring a registration authority is too
    bureaucratic?
  • Perhaps the inability to resolve URNs easily
    makes them difficult to use?
  • Published Subjects uses the opposite approach
  • Anyone can create a PSI (Published Subject
    Indicator)
  • The process is bottom up open and anarchic
    just like the Web itself
  • Survival of the most trusted
  • An evolutionary, darwinistisk process
  • The more authoritative, trusted, and respected
    the publisher, the more likely its identifiers
    will achieve widespread adoption
  • Emergence of de facto standards based on trust
  • The key parameter is confidence in the stability
    and longevity of the PSI

30
Piece 2 The Exchange Protocol
Hi! Do you know the subject genetically modified
food?
The actual question wasIs the
subjecthttp//psi.forskning.no/food/gm-foodknown
in your system?
? http//matportalen.no/Matportalen/Emner/gmo
This scenario is Level 1 of TMRAP knowledge
integration.
31
TMRAP (Topic Maps Remote Access Protocol)
  • Abstract protocol for getting information from
    remote repositories
  • The protocol has an HTTP REST binding
  • A SOAP binding would be easy to do
  • Any repository can support TMRAP
  • For topic map applications support TMRAP is very
    easy
  • For other applications its less easy, but the
    benefit is that legacy applications can be
    integrated
  • The OKS currently contains a prototype
    implementation
  • Used to implement the Vizigator applet
  • Also used for the Omnigator Rap demo
  • For a short introduction to TMRAP
  • http//www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0507.htm
  • Some related work
  • RDF Net API http//www.w3.org/Submission/2003/SUB
    M-rdf-netapi-20031002/
  • SNAPI http//sourceforge.net/projects/snapi

32
The Omnigator Rap Demo (Part 1 VISIT)
  • Two Omnigators are running on this machine
  • Different browsers (Opera and Internet Explorer)
  • Different skins (Ontopia National Colours and
    Vive Québec)
  • Different names pepper poivre
  • Different TMs (Italian Opera and Various
    Geographical TMs)
  • They are aware of each others existence
  • Their support for TMRAP is turned on

33
Simulation of VISIT demo
  1. View Topic Page for Japan in _at_pepper
  2. Go to Manage page in _at_poivre and load Scripts and
    Languages
  3. Reload Topic Page in _at_pepper
  4. Links to Remote Topic Page automatically inserted
  5. Click on VISIT and navigate to the Topic Page in
    _at_poivre
  6. Go to Manage Page, load CIA World Factbook, go
    back to Japan Topic Page in _at_poivre, VISIT
    _at_pepper, note new Remote Topic Link
  7. etc.

etc.
34
VISIT Some Considerations
  • The functionality is deceptively simple, yet
    potential very powerful
  • From the users point of view the VISIT links
    might have been hand-coded(there is no visible
    difference)
  • The cool thing is that they are generated
    entirely automatically
  • This is spontaneous knowledge federation in
    practice!!
  • Think about it a bit
  • Having multiple Omnigators rapping together is
    already fairly cool
  • In fact, any application built with the Ontopia
    Knowledge Suite can nowjoin in the fun
  • And more importantly
  • So can any application at all whether or not it
    is based on Topic Maps
  • The only prerequisites are
  • Subject-centric organization (i.e., some concept
    of Topic Pages)
  • Use of Published Subjects (for the purpose of
    subject identification)
  • Support for TMRAP (in order to send and respond
    to requests)

35
VISIT More Considerations
  • How useful is it really?
  • Isnt it a little simple-minded?
  • For many of our customers it is sufficient as a
    first step
  • The Norwegian Research Council and the Norwegian
    Consumers Association want to be able to link to
    each other in this way
  • The VISIT paradigm enables them to retain their
    own branding
  • At the same time, they offer their users an
    extremely valuable service
  • TMRAP is already being implemented in ZTM
  • When done, not only will the Research Council and
    the Consumers Association be able to rap
    together
  • any Omnigator user will also be able to rap with
    them!
  • And remember
  • This game can be played by any solution that uses
    some kind ofsubject-centric organization and PSIs

36
The Omnigator Rap Demo (Part 2 GET)
  • But we can go a step further with relatively
    little effort
  • Remember Topic Maps are designed for merging
  • so we can exchange not only Topic Page URLs,
  • but also fragments of content in topic map form
  • We are calling those fragments topic maplets
  • TMRAP also supports exchanging maplets

37
Piece 3 Topic Maplets (XTM fragments)
Hi! What do you know about genetically modified
food?
The actual question wasWhat information do
have about http//psi.forskning.no/food/gm-foodi
n your system?
This scenario is Level 2 of TMRAP knowledge
integration.
38
Simulation of GET demo
  1. View Topic Page for Japan in _at_pepper
  2. Go to Manage page in _at_poivre and load both
    Scripts and Languages and CIA World Factbook
  3. Reload Topic Page in _at_pepper
  4. Links to Remote Topic Pages automatically
    inserted
  5. Click on GET for each one and see the set of
    information be augmented by the addition of
    names, associations and occurrences from the
    remote topic maps.

39
GET Some Considerations
  • The functionality is even more powerful
  • The seamlessness factor is much greater
  • In fact we have dumbed it down in this
    Omnigator implementation in order to be able to
    show what is going on The GET functionality
    could be activated automatically
  • Application areas are slightly different
  • Useful when seamlessness is more important and
    branding issues less important
  • E.g., within a corporate environment
  • Opens up the possibility of totally
    individualized portals
  • Topic Maplets
  • Raises some interesting technical issues
  • The most important is deciding exactly what the
    fragment should contain
  • TMQL (Topic Maps Query Language) will provide
    greater flexibility

40
The Building Blocks of Seamless Knowledge
  • Topic Maps
  • Semantically structured data that can be viewed
    as topic maps
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach
  • By the way, this includes RDF, Relational DBs,
    XML and more
  • Already here
  • Published Subjects
  • The Semantic Superhighway
  • Globally unique identifiers for arbitrary
    subjects
  • Already here
  • Topic Maps Remote Access Protocol (TMRAP)
  • Protocol for requesting and delivering Topic Page
    URIs and Topic Maplets
  • Already here
  • Topic Maps Query Language (TMQL)
  • For more powerful and precise TMRAP requests
  • Watch this space (and use tolog in the meantime)

41
Seamless Knowledge and the Semantic Web
  • Are they the same thing?
  • Not if you go by the vision of the Semantic Web
    articulated by Tim Berners-Lee (e.g., in the
    famous Scientific American article)
  • In reality, that amounts to AI on the Web
  • Most business users today dont need AI and they
    dont want to be restricted to the Web
  • On the other hand, other people have other
    visions of the Semantic Web
  • In any case
  • Semantics are akin to knowledge
  • and seamlessness implies the existence of
    something web-like
  • so in a broader sense they do have a lot in
    common
  • Certainly Semantic Web data (i.e., RDF) will be
    easily reusable in the context of Seamless
    Knowledge (as will relational data and XML)
  • The RDF and Topic Maps communities are currently
    working together to acheive interoperability at
    the data level (RDF/TM Interoperability Task
    Force)
  • However, the TBL Semantic Web wont be here for
    many years
  • There is much research still to be done
  • Seamless Knowledge is achievable today
  • Solving the problem of disconnected knowledge on
    a less ambitious scale

42
Conclusions
  • Topic Maps has almost crossed the chasm at
    least in Norway
  • Web sites, Portals, E-learning, Knowledge
    Management,Enterprise Knowledge Integration,
  • Seamless Knowledge is what Topic Maps is about
  • Topic Maps speaks only to the technology
  • CIOs are interested in business benefits and ROI
  • Published Subjects are the key to solving the
    identity issue
  • Anyone can create a PSI (Published Subject
    Indicator)
  • PSIs work for computers AND humans
  • TMRAP allows other data to be viewed as Topic
    Maps
  • Provided information can be made to look like a
    topic map, any legacy technology can play
  • The key is subject-centric organization of
    information
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach
  • Without this, Seamless Knowledge is beyond reach

43
More Topic Maps at XML Europe 2004
  • Wednesday PM
  • Harding (14.45)
  • Ontopias Vizigator Now you see it! (Pam
    Gennusa)
  • Thursday PM
  • South Cotillion (16.45)
  • BrainBank Learning Building Personal Topic Maps
    as a Strategy for Learning (Stian Lavik)
  • Friday AM
  • Eisenhower (9.00)
  • Tutorial Constraining and Querying Topic Maps
    (Steve Pepper)
  • Exhibition
  • Ontopia Booth 414 (with partners)
  • Tuesday 17.30-19.00, Wednesday 10.30-14.00,
    15.30-19.00, Thursday 10.30-16.00

44
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45
Published Subjects
  • An open, distributed, and democratic mechanism
    for assigningunique (global) identifiers to
    arbitrary subjects
  • The mechanism is based on URLs
  • e.g. Ibsen Museum in Oslohttp//psi.kultur
    nett.no/museum/ibsen-museet
  • Nothing special about using URLs in itself, but
  • The PSI mechanism has two special
    characteristics
  • It is two-sided it works for both computers and
    humans
  • It works from the bottom up not from the top
    down
  • Both of these are critically important
  • For more information
  • OASIS Published Subjects TC (http//www.oasis-open
    .org)

46
Men først noen ord om metadata, taksonomier, o.l.
  • Det vi nå skal snakke om har mye bredere
    betydning
  • Det dreier seg ikke bare om sammenkopling av
    emnekart-baserte portaler
  • Det dreier seg om integrasjon av informasjon og
    kunnskap i sin alminnelighet
  • Det er mye snakk for tiden om metadata (og om
    taksonomier og ontologier)
  • Meyer-rapporten (MOD) snakker om behovet for
    felles metadata for å oppnå elektronisk
    samhandling i offentlig sektor
  • Brønnøysundregistrene (NHD) arrangerte nylig et
    seminar med internasjonal deltakelse om
    semantisk interoperabilitet
  • å sikre at den presise betydningen av utvekslet
    informasjon er forståelig av en annen
    applikasjon (og felles metadata sees på som
    sentralt)
  • Norsk digitalt bibliotek (KKD) arbeider med
    kartlegging av metadataformater fordi forbedret
    metadata er av avgjørende betydning for
    digitalisering av biblioteker
  • (Og disse er bare tuppen av isfjellet. Vent til
    dere hører om OLUF)
  • Metadata, taksonomier og ontologier trenger også
    unike globale identifikatorer for å fungere
  • Published Subjects kan løse behovene for alle
    disse anvendelsene
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