ConferenceCall 2008 10 23

= SemanticWiki mini-series (session-1) Launch Event - Thu 23-Oct-2008 =


 * Mini-Series Title: Semantic Wikis: The Wiki Way to the Semantic Web


 * Session-1 Topic: A Survey of the Landscape and State-of-Art in Semantic Wiki


 * Session Co-chairs:
 * Dr. SebastianSchaffert (Salzburg Research, Austria) and Mr. MaxVoelkel (FZI, Karlsruhe)


 * Archive:
 * [ slides ([[PowerPoint])] ] . or . [ slides ([[SlideShare])] ]
 * audio recording of the session (mp3)
 * transcript of the online chat session


 * This mini-series is co-organized by Dr. LiDing (RPI Tetherless World Constellation), Dr. SebastianSchaffert (Salzburg Research, Austria), Mr. HaroldSolbrig (Mayo Clinic), Mr. MaxVoelkel (FZI, Karlsruhe) and Mr. PeterYim (Ontolog, CIM3)

Conference Call Details

 * Date: Thursday, October 23, 2008
 * Start Time: 10:30 AM PDT / 1:30 PM EDT / 7:30pm CEST / 17:30 UTC
 * see world clock for other time zones
 * Expected Call Duration: ~1.5~2.0 hours
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 * Skype: ontolog.forum
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 * RSVP to [mailto:peter.yim@cim3.com peter.yim@cim3.com] appreciated.


 * This session, like all other Ontolog events, is open to the public. Information relating to this session is shared on this wiki page: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2008_10_23


 * Please note that this session will be recorded, and the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees

 * Attendees:
 * SebastianSchaffert (co-chair)
 * MaxVoelkel (co-chair)
 * HaroldSolbrig
 * PeterYim
 * ChristophLange
 * AlanRector
 * JieBao
 * ThomasBrunner
 * GaryBergCross
 * PeterDolog (Aalborg University)
 * John Liston (MISMO)
 * MarcoNeumann
 * Eric Miller (Squishymedia) ... (not the Eric Miller of Zepheira and former W3C Semantic Web WG lead)
 * MitchRinger
 * GailHodge
 * DougHolmes
 * CoryCasanave
 * YaronKoren
 * Elizabeth Pullen (Drew University)
 * Stuart Turner (UC Davis)
 * Zhenning Shangguan (RPI/TWC)
 * JoeRoden
 * BrandNiemann
 * FabianHaupt (Wuerzburg University, Germany)
 * MichelleRaymond
 * Rob Frost ( VectorC )
 * Ted Bashor ( VectorC )
 * EdDodds
 * Jack Ring (Kennen Technologies)
 * DoraiThodla
 * JuanSequeda
 * SyamaChaudhuri


 * Registered attendees who may have joined after the roll call:
 * AntoinetteArsic
 * RaviSharma
 * MartinHepp
 * JeffreySchiffel
 * RexBrooks
 * Alexander Mirzaoff (ITT Space Systems Div.)
 * Arvind Manoharan (NIH/NIAID[C], Lockheed Martin)
 * Abhilash I (please include your affiliation, if you aren't already a member of the Ontolog community)


 * ... to register for participation, please add your name (plus your affiliation, if you aren't already a member of the community) above, or e-mail  so that we can reserve enough resources to support everyone's participation. ...
 * ... to register for participation, please add your name (plus your affiliation, if you aren't already a member of the community) above, or e-mail  so that we can reserve enough resources to support everyone's participation. ...


 * Regrets:
 * LiDing
 * Meena Husein (NASA/JSC)

Session Abstract: A Survey of the Landscape and State-of-Art in Semantic Wiki
In this launch session, we will ...


 * Officially launch this mini-series, and outline what people could be expecting from the program. This is essentially culled from the input received from the community on our ConferenceCall_2008_09_18 planning session


 * hear from our co-chairs on (a) some background and history on Semantic Wikis, (b) perspectives gained from [[SemWiki] 2006] & 2008, and (c) where they feel things are going (trends, directions, future scenarios) in the semantic wiki space.


 * continue to solicit ideas and input to help enhance the program (as part of the open discussion after the prepared talks).

See also: the developing SemanticWiki home page for this mini-series project.

Announcing: the Birds-of-a-Feather Meeting at ISWC (Karlsruhe, Germany) on Sunday 26 Oct 2008 (as discussed in the previous call)

Agenda & Proceedings:

 * Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call.


 * Agenda:
 * 1. Opening by the Session co-chair
 * 2. we'll go around with a self-introduction of participants (~15 minutes) - All - we may skip this if we have more than 25 participants (in which case, it will be best if members try to update their namesake pages on this wiki prior to the call so that everyone can get to know who's who more easily.)
 * 3. Presentations - MaxVoelkel & SebastianSchaffert (30 min. each)
 * 4. Open Discussion - ALL (~30 min.)
 * 5. Summary / Announcement / Conclusion - session co-chair

Presentation Material:

 * Our co-chairs' prepared slides can be accessed by clicking the link below:
 * http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/SemanticWiki/SWiki-01_Landscape_20081023/SemanticWiki-miniseries-Launch--SebastianSchaffert-MaxVoelkel_20081023.ppt
 * or use the version published on SlideShare


 * Additional Resources from the presenters:
 * see developing ideas on the upcoming program for this SemanticWiki mini-series at: SemanticWiki/Prep
 * [[KiWi] prototype] - for demonstrating some of the trends discussed in the presentation
 * [[KiWi] Vision] - detailing many ideas and future trends for Semantic Wikis
 * (please insert additional reference material and links here)

Questions, Answers & Discourse:

 * (Unless the conference host has already muted everyone) Please mute your phone, by pressing "*2" on your phone keypad, when the talk is in progress.
 * If you want to speak or have questions or remarks to make, please "raise your hand (virtually)" using the chat tools (below). You may speak when acknowledged by the session moderator. Unmute your phone, by pressing "*3"', Test your voice and introduce yourself first before proceeding with your remarks.'' (Mute your phone, "*2" again after that, please.)
 * You can also type in your questions or comments through the browser based chat session by:
 * pointing a separate browser tab (or window) to http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room and enter: Room="ontolog_20081023" and My Name="Your Own Name (in WikiWord format" (e.g. "JaneDoe")
 * or point your browser to: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/ontolog_20081023
 * instructions: once you got access to the page, click on the "settings" button, and identify yourself (by modifying the Name field). You can indicate that you want to ask a question verbally by clicking on the "hand" button, and wait for the moderator to call on you; or, type and send your question into the chat window at the bottom of the screen.
 * thanks to the soaphub.org folks, one can now use a jabber/xmpp client (e.g. gtalk) to join this chatroom. Just add the room, in our case here:  as a buddy ... Handy for mobile devices!


 * For those who have further questions or remarks on the topic (or ones tha are left unanswered), please email the individual panelists directly, or, better still, post them to the [swikig] list so that everyone in the community can benefit from the discourse.
 * to subscribe to the mailing list, visit: http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/mailman/listinfo/swikig

Questions and Discussion captured from the chat session:
PeterYim: Welcome to the SemanticWiki mini-series (session-1) Launch Event - Thu 23-Oct-2008


 * Title: A Survey of the Landscape and State-of-Art in Semantic Wiki


 * Session Co-chairs: Dr. SebastianSchaffert (Salzburg Research, Austria) and Mr. MaxVoelkel (FZI, Karlsruhe)

Eric Miller: I'm surprised to see the trend lines pointing down for Ontology and Semantic Web...

PeterYim: question for Max - ref. slide#17 - how is the "popularity" of, say, ontologies, arrived at?

YaronKoren: You can see at the bottom - it's just the frequency of web searches on those terms.

YaronKoren: Not all that scientific.

PeterYim: thank you, Yaron

MaxVoelkel, FZI: to slide 17: i simply queries Google Trends for search term popularity - assumption: if people google for it, it's popular

PeterYim: thank you, Max

anonymous1: are the 4th SemWiki already planned?

ChristophLange: anonymous1: we have some ideas (for ESWC 09) but not yet worked them out completely

JieBao: For 4th SemWiki, how about having it along with ISWC 2009 (Oct 2009,Washington DC)? As the previous workshops are all in EU, and the US user community is growing substantially recently, having a US-based workshop would actually be good. - Just for your consideration

PeterYim: anyone who is still identified as "anonymous" ... would you kindly click on the "settings" button (top center) and then swap in your name (in WikiWord format) please

ChristophLange: re semwiki4: is there potential for the n+1st sem.wiki ws (who would submit, and what?) -- or should the focus be broadened? Our idea was the "semantic bazaar", i.e. transitions btween formal and informal knowledge on the web (for which wikis are a good tool, but maybe not _just_ wikis)

ChristophLange: ... where "bazaar" alludes to "the cathedral and the bazaar", i.e. to agile and internetworked knowledge engineering

YaronKoren: It might be worthwhile to note the commercial semantic wikis, available only as a service and not (currently) as a standalone engine - Freebase and Swirrl.

MaxVoelkel, FZI: @Yaron: Agree, Freebase and Swirrl (and Twine) are also very interesting developments!

YaronKoren: Twine is a wiki?

MaxVoelkel, FZI: well... it'S hard to say what a wiki is. not as wiki as freebase, but quite flexible and modifyable by users, too

ChristophLange: hmm, that refers to what i meant by "not just wikis" -- it need not be called "wiki", but the way of knowledge engineering is similar

FabianHaupt: FYI: there is a twine group on semantic web: http://www.twine.com/twine/1w3b23v2-6j0/web-3-0-semantic-web

YaronKoren: Does Twine let you edit what other people have written?

Eric Miller: Twine doesn't allow collaborative editing to my knowledge

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Is this the key of wikis? At least an important point. Is a Google Document a wiki? Is a shared network drive? ... we had long discussions on such topics

ChristophLange: a shared network drive doesn't allow for links -- that's another important wiki feature

MaxVoelkel, FZI: On windows and linux you can have links, right?

YaronKoren: I'd say a wiki has two basic requirements: collaborative editing, and preservation of version history.

MaxVoelkel, FZI: For me personally easy creation of *linked content* is a key feature

YaronKoren: Maybe that's a requirement of a *good* wiki.

MaxVoelkel, FZI: For me, versioning is optional

YaronKoren: Hm - see slide 41.

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Versioning is really nice, of course, it relieves users from fearing about errors/refactoring

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Her eis the core community discussion about it: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiPrinciples

HaroldSolbrig: Some of these slides seem to go beyond the classic notion of "wiki". Is "wiki" a philosophy and approach or an implementation of a broader set of principles?

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Wiki is an overloaded term: wiki engine runs a wiki site adhering to wiki philosophy - all is called just "wiki"

HaroldSolbrig: Do some of these notions of sharing encompass a distributed / federated triple-store registry?

HaroldSolbrig: Excellent point on the petri dish, imo.

Eric Miller: Re the question on the queue about tools adding semantics: I'm curious, could you explain a bit more?

GaryBergCross: I would worry that letting tools add the semantics will lead to poor semantics.

YaronKoren: I'm guessing that it's a statement on the limitations of AI.

YaronKoren: But I could be wrong.

MaxVoelkel, FZI: @Gary: True, the user must understand what she is doing. Reasoning cannot be better than the del/data its based on

Eric Miller: so "tools" = automated meaning extraction?

PeterYim: Gary, the hand-button toggles your "hand raising"

MaxVoelkel, FZI: no, no *automated extraction*, but careful/meaningful interpretation. If a user adds a tag to a picture, and the tag is the name of a location, maybe ask the user if the picture is showing this location. Maybe ask the user if this assumtpion always holds.

HaroldSolbrig: Would be interested in versioning and transaction implementation...

SebastianSchaffert: is based on JTA and Java EE transactions

Eric Miller: There would need to be rules and automated reasoning tools embedded into the system, though, in order to know what clarifying information was needed. Right?

SebastianSchaffert: Java EE and Jboss seam already provides much infrastructure for transactions

Eric Miller: (side note: I'm not a researcher, I'm a developer working on some semantically informed applications, so I'm not as familiar with the state of the art here; thanks for your patience)

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Of course, meaning extraction is also a nice branch of technology, but in my view, one should ask the user, if the extraction was ok, or at least treat the two kinds of facts (explicity, extracted)

SebastianSchaffert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ2IvWjTf9A - SWOOKI

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Slide 51, too

MaxVoelkel, FZI: "how to do as much semantics as possible with as little user exposure as possible"

YaronKoren: Well, this "challenge" ("if it is not useful in semantic wikis, it is not useful at all") seems like a bit of a tautology - given that any kind of content can show up on a wiki page, for something to be useful there seems to just mean that it's useful.

ChristophLange: little user exposure could generally mean: whenever the user contributes sth., assume that (s)he is willing to give more information in that moment. So ask him/her about why he did so, and record the answer in the knowledge base (as in Max's example on photo tagging)

HaroldSolbrig: I'd like to argue that there are two functions - the creation of ontological knowledge (wikipedia, semantic wiki, tagging, etc) and knowledge maintenance - Protege and like tools that are used by specialists to integrate and coordinate.

SebastianSchaffert: it is like software engineering

SebastianSchaffert: much simpler now, because experts become quicker

HaroldSolbrig: We use a model where SME's suggest in whatever degree of formalism they are comfortable, suggestions are exported, Ontology engineers integrate with specialized tools, return to the semantic wiki for sign-off or correction.

HaroldSolbrig: We've lost too much SME value by making them fit their knowledge to the tool rather than v-v, but we still need quality and consistency in the output.

HaroldSolbrig: Will present on this in January.

SebastianSchaffert: and also there are design principles where I don't need an engineer to build simple software, our web designer can do that

PeterDolog: Harold, I'm looking forward to hear on that in january

PeterDolog: it seems like a pattern

HaroldSolbrig: You touched on that in the talk. The notion that Wikis are organic through and through. We've encountered some real issues when jit software collides with traditional software development methodologies.

HaroldSolbrig: SW development is going to have to change - is a template software or content? How about a query?

HaroldSolbrig: How about when a user tweaks js or css

YaronKoren: These are all examples of scripting languages.

HaroldSolbrig: Indeed, but now the users can treat them as data, vs. requirements -> devel -> test -> deploy.

Eric Miller: "when jit software collides with traditional software development methodologies": could you expand on that?

HaroldSolbrig: I can't go into, say, Amazon and change their pages today.

HaroldSolbrig: Part of what makes Wiki and Semantic Wiki powerful for us is that it is easy to change templates, scripts, plugins, etc. to customize the environment to specific SME requirements. (Semantic Forms & related tools as well).

HaroldSolbrig: If the environment doesn't fit your needs, we tweak the forms and associated tools so they do.

HaroldSolbrig: If I change a form, does it have to go through sw change control? (We are hosted on a government site, which makes it even more tricky - the EPA got burned really bad by some unsolicited content...)

HaroldSolbrig: Excellent presentations!!

PeterDolog: bye to all

SebastianSchaffert: bye

FabianHaupt: cya all

FabianHaupt: happy coding

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Thanks for being a great audience!

ChristophLange: http://semanticweb.org/wiki/SemWiki_Meeting_ISWC_2008 - please consider joining if you are there, Sunday 6pm

MaxVoelkel, FZI: I'll be there, too!

ChristophLange: sure

HaroldSolbrig: Wish I could - will any of it be webcast?

PeterYim: see you there on Sunday, I'm coming too!

ChristophLange: technically not possible, I fear. But the slides of the talks will be online afterwards

PeterYim: thanks everyone, for your participation and contribution!

ChristophLange: thanks for organizing!

PeterYim: Christoph ... thank you very much for the synthesis and the compilation of the "hot topics" from the 9/18 session ... that was most wonderful!

YaronKoren: Maybe it makes sense to turn the December session into just a Semantic MediaWiki session?

YaronKoren: It might be too many topics to cover otherwise.

PeterYim: we just don't seem to have enough sessions! ... I agree, Yaron, so much to cover just in SMW and its extensions

ChristophLange: @Peter: thanks for the compliment, pleased to hear that you liked it

PeterYim: maybe after the first six ... we could delve deeper into particular topics (like SMW, using SWiki for ontology repositories & registries, etc.)

MaxVoelkel, FZI: A round presentation about SMW + the ecosystem of extensions would be great. I think this does not exist yet in any concise form.

PeterYim: let's all keep the suggestions and discussion going on the [swikig] list ...

YaronKoren: Is that where these sessions were planned? I was wondering about that.

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Session planning happened partially in the ontolog wiki, partially between PeterYim, Sebastan and myself, HaroldSolbrig and LiDing too, partially in the last call, ...

YaronKoren: Ah.

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Session 2-6 are not cast in stone, but seemed to make a nice structure to cover most topics

PeterYim: it was supposed to ... we have a "program committee" of sorts (we refer to them as co-champions here) who was supposed to seed that discussion ... todays' presented "plan" (which is supposed to be a strawman) is the first time this has been "socialized"

PeterYim: the program needs to be community driven, and done in the "wiki way!"

YaronKoren: Well, where's the page where it's being discussed?

MaxVoelkel, FZI: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SemanticWiki/Prep

PeterYim: I leave for Germany at about 5am tomorrow ... if I have time (after taking care of urgent matters) I'll work on today's audio archive and post it before my trip) ... if not, I'll work on that after I get back from ISWC (Karlsruhe) and FOIS (Saarbrueken)

MaxVoelkel, FZI: Have a safe trip & cu here!

PeterYim: this mini-series project home page is at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SemanticWiki ... one can start from there

YaronKoren: How can I start?

PeterYim: I mean start reading ...

YaronKoren: Oh.

PeterYim: Thanks ... see you (going to lunch now)! bibi

ChristophLange: CU on Sunday, have a good trip!

PeterYim: Tx ... bibi (for now)

ChristophLange: bye!

Audio Recording of this Session

 * To download the audio recording of the session, click here
 * the playback of the audio files require the proper setup, and an MP3 compatible player on your computer.
 * Conference Date and Time:	23-Oct-2008 10:40am~12:20pm PDT
 * Duration of Recording:	1 Hour 30 Minutes
 * Recording File Size:	       10.2 MB (in mp3 format)
 * suggestion:
 * its best that you listen to the session while having the respective slide presentation opened in front of you. You'll be prompted to advance slides by the speaker.
 * Take a look, also, at the rich body of knowledge that this community has built together, over the years, by going through the archives of noteworthy past Ontolog events. (References on how to subscribe to our podcast can also be found there.)