Project Proposal Presentation - Shenzi

Ontologies for the Semantic
Web

Prepared By:

Tseliso Molukanele

Rapelang Rabana

Supervisor:


Associate Professor Sonia Burman

20 July 2005

Overview


Introduce the Field of Ontologies


Approaches to Ontological Engineering


Inspirational Toolkit


Synthetic Toolkit


Resources Required


Work Allocation


Milestones

What are Ontologies?


“Ontology is a negotiated, agreed
conceptualization of reality that is
arrived at by consensus involving all
stakeholders”


An agreed upon description of
information:


-

definition of terms


-


‘is
-
a’ hierachy


-

‘has
-
a’ hierachy

Who uses ontologies?



Philosophy


AI


WWW


Library Science


Office

Why use ontologies?

A better WWW


Automatic Machine processing


Faster browsing/searching


Realize difference/similarity of
concepts

Evolution of OWL



HTML


XML


RDF
(Resource Description Framework )


OWL
(Web Ontology Language)

Project Objectives



Develop toolkits that aids the non
-
Computer Science user:



-

to create ontologies


-

to manage/use ontologies

Ontological Engineering



Creating ontologies


Inspirational Approach


Synthetic Approach


The Inspirational Approach


Own creativity/imagination


Personal view of domain


No prior constructs


From scratch

Extensions to OWL



UCT PhD Student Daniel Semwayo


Extra features


Granularity


Realise niche of entity

Inspirational Toolkit


Build ontologies from users
specification


Adhere fully to OWL


Incorporate Daniel Semwayo’s
Extension


Be usable

Questions tackled



Does a tool for building usable
ontologies exist?


Are simple specifications better then
more constructs?


Is Daniel Semwayo’s extension
enforceable?


Success Factors


Complete implementation that adheres
to OWL


Improved productivity in creation of
ontologies


Enforcement of extra methodology


Improved productivity in the use of
ontologies by extra methodology


The Synthetic Approach


Identification of an ontology or set of
ontologies






Manipulation and merging of



ontologies





SYNTHESIS of ontologies



How is this approach useful?



Embraces multiple ontologies



Opportunity for interaction and sharing

Related Work


‘Ontology Applications & Design’


-

Gruninger and Lee



‘OIL: Ontology Infrastructure to Enable
the Semantic Web’


-

Fensel and Horrocks

Gruninger & Lee


Approach A


Use consortia and
standards
organizations to
develop
comprehensive
ontology


requires
collaborative design
which is time
-
consuming and
expensive


Approach B


Develop lots of
lightweight and
then merge them


requires ontology
mapping and
merging, so
ontologies must
follow one standard

Objectives of Synthetic Toolkit



Facilitate integrated usage of existing
ontologies to produce a customized,
more relevant ontology



Be usable by non
-
Computer Scientists


The Synthetic Toolkit


Allow for a base of ontologies to be
selected and imported into Toolkit


Provide supportive functions:
browsing, modifying, manipulating,
organising and merging


Allow resultant ontology to be exported
to an application to be used for a
particular purpose, eg: search
application

Limitations of Synthetic Toolkit



Synthesis of ontologies built in
compliance with a single web ontology
language, OWL



Merging cannot be fully automated



Major design Challenges


Standardise presentation of diverse
and/or large ontologies



Importing and merging differing
ontologies



Ensuring ease of use for non
-
computer
scientists

How will Toolkit be evaluated?


Require: users with some expertise in
a particular subjects


Users select and synthesize ontologies
to suit their needs


Users export resultant ontology to
search application to ascertain impact
on search results


General Resources Required



OWL Parsers


Collection of ontologies


Database for search application


Test subjects


Work Allocation


Inspirational Toolkit & Extensions:


Tseliso Molukanele



Synthetic Toolkit & Search Application:


Rapelang Rabana

Major Milestones

Milestone

Date of
Completion

Background & Literature Survey

26 Aug

Ontologies imported to Synthetic Toolkit
and Search Engine Implemented

Sept 7

Core functionality of Inspirational Toolkit
Implemented

Sept 12

Supportive Functions of Synthetic Toolkit &
Extensions of Inspirational Toolkit
Implemented

Sept 22

Testing

Oct 3

Final Report

Oct 7

Conclusion


Ontologies play a key role in
Knowledge Management


Must provide better support for their
creation and use


Inspirational and Synthetic approaches
adopted, explore the possibilities of
greater support