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Ontolog Forum

Open Ontology Repository initiative - Planning Meeting - Thu 2008-01-03

We are using this conference call to explore and possibly plan on kicking-off an Open Ontology Repository initiative, which a few of the folks in the community feels that a collaborative effort on such would be a meaningful thing to move forward with --Conveners: Peter P. Yim, Leo Obrst & MikeDean

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008
  • Start Time: 10:30am PST / 1:30pm EST / 18:30 UTC
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Attendees

    • ... (please insert your name above or RSVP by e-mailing <peter.yim@cim3.com> offline)
  • Regrets:

Agenda Ideas

(please insert your ideas below)

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Agenda & Proceedings

1) Welcome & calling the meeting to order

  • Leo & Mike co-chaired the call and welcomed everyone.
  • Peter volunteered to take notes on the proceedings
  • Roll-call of participants: see above
  • Review and adopt agenda

2) Participants' self-introduction (affiliation, pertinent work, etc.) and expectations from this call or the initiative (2 minute each)

  • recommendations (from all participants) on who else should have been invited/involved
    • John Graybeal - Roy Lowry (British Oceanographic Data Centre)
    • the LexGrid folks
    • ISO-11179 (Nancy Lawler) and XMDR (Bruce Bargmeyer) folks
    • NCOR folks
    • Marcia: NKOS community (digital library retrieval services, etc.)
    • Luis: ref. ISO 19135 work

3) Key Issue(s) discussion - "Open Ontology Repository initiative - Planning":

Discussion:

  • Needs & Requirements:
    • scope - keeping it lean (Duane) or rich in services (ref. details on Leo's slides)?
    • centralized (and mirrored) vs. federated repositories
    • how open? - Peter: totally "open" (malicious intents excluded, of course)
  • Goals & a Mission Statement:
    • Mike Dean - first draft: "To promote the global use of ontologies by developing and maintaining an open, collaborative ontology repository."
    • keeping it open on whether we will be hosting a repository or not.
    • Farrukh's update: "To promote the global use of ontologies by enabling and facilitating open, federated, collaborative ontology repositories."
    • John & Leo both feels that we should state that we ARE going to operate a repository (Duane's "1." should do)
    • Duane's addition: "mission should be to: 1. establish a hosted registry-repository; 2. promote the global use of ontologies by enabling and facilitating open, federated collaborative ontology repositories,; 3. establish best practices for expressing ontology and taxonomy work in registry-repositories."
    • Final edit: "promote the global use and sharing of ontologies by: 1. establishing a hosted registry-repository; 2. enabling and facilitating open, federated, collaborative ontology repositories; 3. establishing best practices for expressing interoperable ontology and taxonomy work in registry-repositories."
    • Peter moves to adopt this (final edit version) working mission statement (subject to final confirmation by the working group); Rex seconded the motion; all agreed and adopted by this meeting.
  • project codename/acronym:
  • An initial Team:
    • All attending today
    • plus ping the expected, regrets and recommended lists anove.
  • Next step:
    • consider requirement - think of scope and staging
    • create a wiki page and a mailing - Peter
    • will be subscribing all to [ontolog-forum] and the new [oor-forum] lists
  • Resources:
  • relevance of this initiative to the upcoming Ontology Summit 2008 - All: Yes!
    • what if this gets adopted (as the 'main theme'; as part of the agenda)?
    • what if this doesn't get adopted?
  • Deliverables:
  • Timeline / Milestones:
  • Discussion & Remarks:
    • Discussion on the chat session:

//

Duane Nickull: Registry-Repository facitilies should generally not contain any reasoning components.

R&R is simply a storage facility. Reasoning engines use R&R API's as a source of knowledge.

Duane Nickull: IN ISO/IEC 11179 2004 part 3, the purpose of the registry is to be loaded with the

first order logic that constraints further binary or n-ary relationships to a set number of types

(Symmetrical, Assymetrical etc). These can be inherited and labelled to build custom representations

of taxonomy concept maps.

Duane Nickull: Also - mapping does not work unless one considers the some context aspects. One gotcha

is the heirarchy in XML. A data element "FirstNameOfPerson" is not the same if it occurs in a path

of ConferenceCall_2008_01_03//PurchaseORder/BuyerParty/ vs. PurchaseOrder/SellerParty/

Mark Feblowitz: I've had to ring off for another call. I'm quite interested in this topic. I'll be

listening to the recording later, and will be interested in any follow-on.

anonymous2: Looking at the R&R as analogous to an archive, I'm in agreement with Duane that the

registry should contain just first order logic.

Lee Feigenbaum: Open Anzo semantic middleware platform: http://openanzo.org

John Graybeal: Speed of initial roll-out will be important for some participants -- having a few

capabilities early will be extremely valuable.

John Graybeal: So I love the use cases/requirements -- thanks very much for providing those!

(Prioritization of them will be key.) And am eager to participate in a collaboration.

John Graybeal: Must sign off for now. Looking forward to the results.

Farrukh Najmi: Starting point for reading on ebXML RegRep and

freebXML registry: <http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net/wiki/Overview>

Lee Feigenbaum: I got disconnected. WIll try to rejoin.

Li Ding: centralized semantic web ontology search engine - http://swoogle.umbc.edu/.

It offers submit, index, search, version-tracking and REST web service.

Duane Nickull: Here is a registry&ontology project I did for the Canadian Government:

Duane Nickull: http://www.nickull.net/presentations/FINAL-IJIS-Jan15-2004-Registry-SOA.ppt

Anders Tell: Ref to: Architectural principles and point of views, IEEE1471, ISO 42010:2007

Mike Dean: To promote the global use of ontologies by developing and maintaining an open,

collaborative ontology repository.

anonymous2 morphed into Gerry Creager

Gerry Creager: I'm inclined to agree that the following are good points:

1. Federated repository structure although a distributed system should be employed.

Thus, we need to work toward interoperable and scalable repositories as individual ones evolve.

2. Individual software elements should be purpose-driven rather than large code-sets

(unix model of services).

3. Services will be what draws in users. Therefore, apps will need to evolve that are

user-requirement driven rather than simply providing a sterile API.

anonymous1 morphed into Leo Obrst

Rex Brooks: I got disconnected, but I will also make sure that the group I work with is informed about this.

It is the Integrated Response Services Consortium, focused on Emergency Management and Health Informatics,

putting together a very domain-specific Service-Oriented Architecture. I hesitated to muddy the waters by

suggesting that this effort, by its very nature, will tend toward developing a de facto SOA.

Duane Nickull: Think mission should be to establish a hosted registry-repository

Rex Brooks: However, I think Leo's point about the need for developing services to make use of the

registry-repository--provide benefits--is important.

Li Ding: a question, how the statement will be evaluated?

Farrukh Najmi: How about:

To promote the global use of ontologies by enabling and facilitating open, federated collaborative

ontology repositories.

Mike Dean: i like farrukh's proposal

Gerry Creager: That'd work for me.

Anders Tell: Farrukh new statements is a step forward.

Li Ding: The goal is to promote usage of ontology, but the approach is not limited to ontology repository

because there are many other factors, such as tools supporting ontology, mapping and integration services,

visualization services.

Farrukh Najmi: ebXML RegRep Profile for Web Ontology <http://docs.oasis-open.org/regrep/v3.0/profiles/owl/>

Rex Brooks: I agree with Farrukh's suggestion.

Duane Nickull: + 1 to Farrukh's statement.

Duane Nickull: mission should be to:

1. establish a hosted registry-repository;

2. promote the global use of ontologies by enabling and facilitating open, federated collaborative

ontology repositories,;

3. establish best practices for expressing ontology and taxonomy work in registry-repoositories

John Graybeal: Farrukh's candidate does not say we will develop anything, only that we will

facilitate development of things. Don't know if thats an issue or not.

Duane Nickull: yes - that is why I added the other parts

Farrukh Najmi: +1 on Duanes 3 part mission

Farrukh Najmi: ebXML RegRep 4.0 is being defined now. Interested parties should feed requirements

into that work.

Farrukh Najmi: I can be contact point farrukh@wellfleetsoftware.com

Mike Dean: I'd like to see the goal addressed up front, as promote the global use of ontologies

by 1. ... 2. ... 3. ...

Ken Baclawski: I would like to see interoperability explicitly mentioned as a goal for the

Ken Baclawski: best practices.

Duane Nickull: interoperability and other requirements couldbe collected and documented in a

Requirements Document which would help us all understand what we might want to concentrate on.

Duane Nickull: interoperability is a requirement that reg-rep can help solve. interoperability is not

what a reegistry is all about ipso facto

Rex Brooks: I think a requirements document with use cases is a good idea. Registries contribute toward

that, enable it, but don't enforce or produce it.

Gerry Creager: Interoperability, correctly stated, isn't the sole function of an registry. However, if

it doesn't help promote it from the start, we lose the opportunity to see a real federation evolve easily.

Rex Brooks: true.

Ken Baclawski: I agree that the registry is not about ontology interoperability per se. That is why I

only want it mentioned in the best practices part.

Li Ding: the best practice part focus on ontology creators but not ontology consumers

Farrukh Najmi: I am in listen + chat mode now and cannot speak into conf due to some logistical issues.

If any one needs my input just look for response in chat window.

Farrukh Najmi: ONTOREP

Lee Feigenbaum: I like OOPS but I don't know what the P and S stand for

Farrukh Najmi: Can someone speak my suggestion of ONTOREP as I think I cant be heard

Li Ding: Collaborative Open Ontology Library

Li Ding: (COOL)

Farrukh Najmi: OpenOntoRep

John Graybeal: COOL is used elsewhere, will be confusing

Lee Feigenbaum: OREP?

Farrukh Najmi: +1 on OREP

Li Ding: Oori is MIT's student pungmul group

Farrukh Najmi: Yes

//

4) Next Steps & Action Items:

  • Action Items:
  • Our next meeting/call on this initiative will be two weeks from now (exact date/time to be confirmed on the mailing)
  • this call adjourned 12:35pm PST

--

minutes captured in real time on this wiki by Peter P. Yim / 2008.01.03-12:50 PST

Attendees are requested to review the notes above, help clean it up, and make amendments and edits to better

reflect the proceedings of the session as they see fit (particularly where they are personally involved).


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Audio Recording of this Session

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  • Conference Date and Time: 03-Jan-2008 10:36am~12:35pm Pacific Standard Time
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