Ontolog Forum Panel Discussion Preparation Page    (ML3)

Thursday 20 April 2006    (ML4)

Genesis and Background of this discussion    (MM6)

Proposed discussion agenda    (ML9)

Pertinent Issues    (MLI)

(please draft and list)    (MLJ)

Panelist Focus    (MLK)

Speaker - Title of Brief - Abstract    (MLL)

She has provided an initial inventory of terms (Concepts and Topics) on which to build the architecture needed to achieve this stated goal ( OO).    (MO3)

Building a Thesaurus which fits with other evolving Ontolog Forum elements suggests a basic blueprinting of process based upon a roadmap that shows the various feasible paths between nodes/sub-goals. Feasible paths avoid known and reported hazardous areas of endless debate, frustrating loops, and sink-holes frequently found in academic and/or philosophical sqabbles over symbols without real world reference. (See "the Meaning of Meaning" debates and the Semantic Triangle linking concepts, symbols, reality checks. )    (MO4)

A driver of this framework is the need for Applied Ontology, as defined by the journal ( http://www.iospress.nl/html/15705838.php ) and frequently by this Ontolog Forum. (--BobSmith / 2006.04.17 8:56am PDT)    (MLV)

First, simple tagging, a la http://del.icio.us, can be used to allow individual users to tag the content as they view it in an idiosyncratic manner. Assuming enough such tagging and by different users, we would create folksonomies [0] [1] for the content. We can complement the tagging with other social features such as comments and community feedback (i.e., ratings, digging, mojo) as done in Web 2.0 services, e.g., http://digg.com and http://slashdot.org, which would help involve users and give a sense for the content's value in the eyes of its users.    (MOE)

Second, some of the main content are in the form of audio files, the approach there is to use services such as http://podzinger.com and others, to convert the audio into text transcripts and tags.    (MOF)

Third, as leading experts in the field of ontology engineering, we should be able to fight our way into creating at an initial ontology for the site's content. This ontology would give us an outline for the site.    (MOG)

And finally, using mining tools, standards, and techniques, such as UIMA [2] we can get an initial automated annotation of the content.    (MOH)

With these four different sources of semantics, the directions and questions then become what are the use cases we are trying to solve and how do we combine these semantic sources (with appropriate algorithms, UI) to solve the problems posed by the use case?    (MOI)

For instance, cataloguing could be a combination of using the folksonomies [3] and automated annotations to associate the content with appropriate concepts with the initial outline ontology. Social features for rating and allowing feedback (similar to http://digg.com and http://slashdot.com) would help in the contents’ presentation by helping infer its utility.    (MOJ)

              [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy
              [1] http://tomgruber.org/writing/ontology-of-folksonomy.htm
              [2] http://www.research.ibm.com/UIMA/
              [3] Mika, P. "Ontologies are us: A unified model of social networks and semantics", ICSW 2005, Galway, Ireland    (MOK)

Pertinent Questions for Discussion    (MM0)

(please draft and list)    (MM1)

File Repository    (MMI)

Logistics    (MO5)