Conference Call 2003-09-11

UBL-Ontology Project Conference Call - Thu 2003-09-11    (7IT)

Conference Call Details    (7IU)

• Subject: [UblOntology] project conference call Thu 2003-09-11    (7IV)
• Comments/Agenda:    (7IW)
  • Agenda Comments: ... build rapport; ... sync up; ... distribute, assign or arbitrate virtual ownership of tasks; ... and use it to deal with emergencies. ... plus, member suggested agenda items.    (7IX)
  • Please post you suggested agenda items if you would like to see anything put onto the agenda    (7IY)
  • please post or upload any material to be shared to the list, to the wiki or by ftp upload prior to the meeting    (7IZ)
  • VNC session will be started 5 minutes before the call at: http://vnc2.cim3.net:5800/    (7J0)
    • view-only password: "ontolog"    (7J1)
    • view-and-control pw: to be supplied during session as needed    (7J2)
  • During the call, please browse the wiki page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Conference_Call_2003-09-11    (7J3)
• Date: Thursday, Sep. 11, 2003    (7J4)
• Start Time: 10:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time    (7J5)
• End Time: 11:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time    (7J6)
• Dial-in Number: 1-702-851-3330 (Las Vegas, Nevada)    (7J7)
• Participant Access Code: "030911#"    (7J8)

Attendees    (7J9)

• Attended:    (7JA)
  • AdamPease (will be there but will have to leave at 11:15am PDT)    (7JB)
  • KurtConrad    (7JC)
  • PeterYim    (7JD)
  • BillMcCarthy    (7JE)

• Expecting:    (7JF)
  • MonicaMartin    (7JG)
  • LeoObrst (may participate through mobile phone)    (7JH)

• Regrets:    (7JI)
  • JohnYunker -- Sorry to keep missing, I'm trying to reorganize Thursdays to be more friendly. I'm keeping up on the minutes though. John    (7JJ)

Agenda Ideas    (7JK)

Agenda & Proceedings    (7JL)

1) Welcome    (7JM)

•    (7JN)
  • KurtConrad took the chair and welcomed everyone.    (7JO)

2) Appointment of secretary to take minutes    (7JP)

•    (7JQ)
  • PeterYim volunteered.    (7JR)

3) Roll-call of participants    (7JS)

• see above    (7JT)

4) Face-to-face meeting    (7JU)

• a. November 5-8, 2003    (7JV)
  • See: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologWorkshop_Nov_2003    (7JW)
  • both AdamPease and BillMcCarthy will be able to make it.    (7JX)
  • JonBosak confirms meeting room availability from the Sun Microsystems San Francisco facility for Thu & Fri    (7JY)
  • Noting that we will be making a presentation on 2003-11-05 Wed 3:00-5:00pm in a UBL plenary session    (7JZ)
  • Three kinds of tutorial/workshop sessions that might be offered    (7K0)
    • the Wednesday "What is Ontology" - for both the ontolog and UBL membership    (7K1)
    • hands-on training (on things like KIF, SUMO, Protege, RDF/S, XML/XSD, collaboration tools, ... etc.)    (7K2)
    • workshop session to get our ubl-ontology work done (doing the use cases; formalizing the concepts, ... etc.)    (7K3)
  • A discussion was made on whether or not we are charging for the tutorials? Especially in view of the fact that quite a few of us are independant operators, and could appreciate the support in exchange for the effort.    (7K4)
    • Adam is in favor of charging across the board. He also thinks, based on past experience, that people will value the session(s) more if they had paid for it, than if the tutorials were free-of-charge.    (7K5)
    • Peter suggested that we should leave it slightly flexible -- for members who are from major institution and corporations, we would solicit their paying for the tutorials; but for people who cannot afford it, we should also welcome them.    (7K6)
    • Adam: maybe we can charge people until a threshold is reached (which allows to offer the tutorial), and then we can start offering people to attend for free.    (7K7)
    • Peter: maybe one way to implement it is to say we charge, but then we also accept applications for "scholarships" for those who are interested, but cannot afford to pay. (--ppy/2003-09-11_18:42 PDT)    (7K8)
  • Let's look to a minimum of 10 people as being critical mass. If we have less than 10 people interested in a tutorial, we should consider not offering it.    (7K9)
  • Are we going to have sessions on Sat 2003-11-08 ?    (7KA)
    • need to decide that first ... Kurt might pursue with Webcor to support us on a venue    (7KB)
  • Given all our different backgrounds, BillMcCarthy suggested we try to bring each other up to speed    (7KC)
    • Peter: let's do a "call for paper" or "call for champion" to solicit relevant presentations by members who can be at this meeting.    (7KD)
    • Bill will write up (and post) some work that people can focus on, and do them before the meet.    (7KE)

• b. Possible March 22-24, 2004 (alongside AAAI symposium at Stanford)    (7KF)
  • discussion postponed.    (7KG)

5) Communication logistics & work protocols    (7KH)

• a. Latest version of ontology browser - http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/kifb    (7KI)
  • browser is up, and as up-to-date as it can be (with a public domian SUMO ontology; issue is closed.    (7KJ)

• b. "Representation" debate: KIF vs Protege, et. al.    (7KK)
  • officially, we still don't have resolution    (7KL)
  • Kurt's summarization of our current "consensus" (please correct the reporting of individual positions as you see fit):    (7KM)
    • At this time, consensus is incomplete.    (7KN)
    • We are very, very close to having consensus regarding our main work products (and the relation between them): KIF is, without exception, being accepted as the richest normative form and our primary work product. We also expect to release other work products, which are less complete and effectively derived from from KIF formalizations (Protege, SQL, XML, etc.). Exactly how many secondary products will be delivered is still somewhat open, but a Protege product is expected. Likewise, because UBL is XML-based, an XML product is expected.    (7KO)
    • We are much farther away from having consensus around our work processes, which remain the primary areas of conflict. The tension appears to be between starting the work in KIF (because of its representational richness) or starting the work in Protoge (because it offers a number of important operational advantages, especially to individuals new to ontological engineering). The position that Leo and the other participants at last week's conference call took was that Protege is an appropriate starting point because of offers a number of practical advantages. Adam's position is that the representational limitations of Protege make it ill-suited for any formalization work which is expected to eventually be expressed in KIF.    (7KP)
  • Adam might be able to introduce a tool called SIGMA which uses the KIF knowledge representation but which has a frame-based editor. He'll post more details.    (7KQ)

6) Use cases (http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?UseCases)    (7KR)

• a. PO / Invoice reconciliation    (7KS)

• b. Context-sensitive address rules    (7KT)

• c. Mapping between representations    (7KU)

•    (7KV)
  • discussion postponed.    (7KW)

7) Formalization issues    (7KX)

• UBL is about a week from setting their element in concrete. That would provide us the basis to start our conversion work.    (7KY)

8) Sponsorship and funding    (7KZ)

• consider pursuing this with NIST -- both JonBosak and AdamPease alluded to that.    (7L0)
  • Kurt: maybe we should get a list of all the people we know in NIST and how they might fit in    (7L1)

9) Other business    (7L2)

•    (7L3)
  • none    (7L4)

10) Next meeting date and adjourn    (7L5)

• meeting adjourned 11:35am PDT    (7L6)
• next meeting, same time next week 2003-09-18 10:30-11:30am PDT    (7L7)

 --
 minutes captured by PeterYim in real time on the wiki
 - ppy/2003-09-11_11:38 PDT    (7L8)