W3C Web Ontology (WEBONT) Working Group

Web Ontology Working Group

Working Group named WebOnt in the W3C Semantic Web Activity aimed at “extending the semantic reach of current XML and RDF meta-data efforts.“

Author persepective – next step for DAML+OIL rollout; starting point – Joint Committee language spec, route to broader user base / greater impact, …

History

W3C Announcement in November 2001 - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001Nov/0000.html

Weekly teleconferences starting in November 2001

DAML+OIL as WebOnt starting point is submitted as a joint committee effort authored by Connolly, van Harmelen, Horrocks, McGuinness, Patel-Schneider, and Stein as a W3C note in December 2001.

First Face to Face Meeting in January 2002 in New Jersey with roughly quarterly meetings following expected in:

Amsterdam in April

United States (Stanford or Boston) in July

Europe in the fall

Charter

Chartered to design “A Web ontology language, that builds on current Web languages that allow the specification of classes and subclasses, properties and subproperties (such as RDFS),

but which extends these constructs to allow more complex relationships between entities including:

means to limit the properties of classes with respect to number and type,

means to infer that items with various properties are members of a particular class,

a well-defined model of property inheritance, and

similar semantic extensions to the base languages.”

Charter II – General Reqs

The products of the WebONT group should not presuppose any particular approach to either ontology design or ontology use. In addition, the language must support the development and linking of ontologies together, in a web-like manner.

The products of this working group must be supported by a formal semantics allowing language designers, tool builders, and other "experts" to be able to precisely understand the meaning and "legal" inferences for expressions in the language.

The language will use the XML syntax and datatypes wherever possible, and will be designed for maximum compatibility with XML and RDF language conventions.

Full Charter available: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/charter

Scope

WebOnt is focusing on getting out the language in a timely manner and is scoping its efforts to facilitate progress. We have defined areas that are OUT of scope including:

Rules (such as RuleML)

Query Languages (such as DQL)

Universal Web Logic – logic able to express any web content

Agent Communication Languages – agent languages and infrastructure

Membership

Current Membership list includes 49 members. Geographically distributed largely in Europe, North America, and Japan.

Industry including for example:

large companies such as Daimler Chrysler, EDS, Fujitsu, HP, Lucent, Nokia, Philips Electronics, Unisys, …

newer/smaller companies such as Adaptive Media, IVIS Group, Network Inference, Stilo Technology, Unicorn Solutions, …

Government and Not-For-Profits including for example:

Defense Information Systems Agency, Intelink Management Office, Interoperability Technology Association for Information Processing, Japan (INTAP) , Mitre, …

Universities and Research Centers including for example:

University of Bristol, University of Maryland, University of Southamptom, Stanford University, …

DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), Forschungszentrum Informatik

Invited Experts (largely academic non-W3C members)

Guided Tour

http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/ contains information concerning:

Current Events

Schedule/Milestones

Membership

Charter/History (including link to Face to Face Meeting)

Background References & Related work – quite useful collection of links

Face to Face January 2002
Guided Tour

http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/ftf1.html contains information on

Participants (including at least 6 DAML contractors – Dean, Decker, Finin, Horrocks, McGuinness, Stein)

Preparation Materials including:

Use Cases: (drivers for language requirements)

Collection Management and update– Schreiber

Interoperability and update– Obrst

Services - Decker

General Requirements/Goals document and update– Heflin/McGuinness (indicators for modifications to DAML+OIL)

DAML+OIL Issues and Experiences – Dean (feedback for DAML+OIL)

Layering Issues and update– Patel-Schneider/Fensel

Other issues such as tractability of decision procedures, full logs of meeting available.

Readouts from breakout groups

Collection Management - Schreiber - large data/text/image/multimedia/website sets with a common theme

Interoperability – Obrst - capability to send and receive content supported by ontologies across applications with retention of semantics, the ability to map between different ontologies in a semantics preserving manner

Services – Decker – services defined by examples of travel agent, advertising/matching services, automated configuration of services/devices…

Requirements/Goals – McGuinness – requirements are specifications that must be met in order for WebOnt to be considered done.

Results in a poll of results for requirements and goals

Resulting Documents

W3C Note on Use Cases and Requirements/Goals

Includes use cases on: web portals (Ontoweb), image collection, corporate web site management, design documentation, intelligent agents (AgentCities), and ubiquitous computing

Design goals/motivations: shared ontologies, ontology evolution, inconsistency detection, ontology interoperability, expressiveness/scalability balance, ease of use, XML syntax, internationalization.

Requirements: ontologies with unique identifiers, unambiguous term referencing, explicit ontology extension, commitment to ontologies, ontology metadata, versioning, class definition primitives, property definition primitives, datatypes, class and property equivalence, local unique names assumption, closed world statements, classes as instances, complex data types, cardinality constraints, lexical representations, character model, and Unicode support for internationalization.

Resulting Documents, cont.

White paper on how requirements currently are supported by DAML+OIL (Class of requirements – Class A below)

Ontology namespaces/inter-ontology reference: yes.

Annotation/tagging of ontologies (some particular properties): yes?

lexical representation (internationalization): almost

unambiguous term referencing using URIs: yes

ability to state unique names: no/somewhat

uniqueness of Unicode strings: yes

character set support: yes

ontology management language features (versioning): ?

A forthcoming layering proposal (a draft)

Discussion – Transition and
Author Perspective

WebOnt’s OWL today looks like it will be similar to DAML+OIL however some requirements will require modifications.

Leads to TRANSITION issues

WebOnt begins with stable language of DAML+OIL and its tool environments

Expectations are that transition to OWL will not be difficult and will be able to be automatically done

Timeframe for re-evaluation is expected to be about a month

W3C integration is an excellent framework in which to facilitate both technology push (dissemination of language/tools) and pull (specifications/requirements from broad community). This connection accelerates the broad impact of the DAML program.

Logistics for Participation

instructions

Review the Charter/History

Ask your W3C Advisory Committee Representative to nominate you in email to: [email protected]

Interested in staying literate? Review the:

main web site

Archives including irc chat logs

Related mailing lists/archives such as RDF-Logic, W3C-rdfcore-wg archives, semantic web archives, rdf-rules, www archives, …

Extra

Class B requirements

Relational types (transitive, reflexive, symmetric,…)

Class as instance

Ontology mapping (equivalent to)

Ontology partitioning

Complex datatypes

Closed world assertions

Tagging/ grouping

Class C

Layering (both similar to oil and layering on rdfs)

Effective decision procedures

Commitment to portions of ontologies


Working Group named WebOnt in the W3C Semantic Web Activity aimed at “extending the semantic reach of current XML and RDF meta-data efforts.“
Author persepective – next step for DAML+OIL rollout; starting point – Joint Committee language spec, route to broader user base / greater impact, …
History
	W3C Announcement in November 2001 - http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-logic/2001Nov/0000.html
	Weekly teleconferences starting in November 2001
	DAML+OIL as WebOnt starting point is submitted as a joint committee effort authored by Connolly, van Harmelen, Horrocks, McGuinness, Patel-Schneider, and Stein as a W3C note in December 2001.
	First Face to Face Meeting in January 2002 in New Jersey with roughly quarterly meetings following expected in:
		Amsterdam in April
		United States (Stanford or Boston) in July
		Europe in the fall


	Chartered to design “A Web ontology language, that builds on current Web languages that allow the specification of classes and subclasses, properties and subproperties (such as RDFS),
	but which extends these constructs to allow more complex relationships between entities including:
		means to limit the properties of classes with respect to number and type,
		means to infer that items with various properties are members of a particular class,
		a well-defined model of property inheritance, and
		similar semantic extensions to the base languages.”


	The products of the WebONT group should not presuppose any particular approach to either ontology design or ontology use. In addition, the language must support the development and linking of ontologies together, in a web-like manner.
	The products of this working group must be supported by a formal semantics allowing language designers, tool builders, and other "experts" to be able to precisely understand the meaning and "legal" inferences for expressions in the language.
	The language will use the XML syntax and datatypes wherever possible, and will be designed for maximum compatibility with XML and RDF language conventions.

	Full Charter available: http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/charter


	WebOnt is focusing on getting out the language in a timely manner and is scoping its efforts to facilitate progress. We have defined areas that are OUT of scope including:
		Rules (such as RuleML)
		Query Languages (such as DQL)
		Universal Web Logic – logic able to express any web content
		Agent Communication Languages – agent languages and infrastructure


Current Membership list includes 49 members. Geographically distributed largely in Europe, North America, and Japan.
	Industry including for example:
		large companies such as Daimler Chrysler, EDS, Fujitsu, HP, Lucent, Nokia, Philips Electronics, Unisys, …
		newer/smaller companies such as Adaptive Media, IVIS Group, Network Inference, Stilo Technology, Unicorn Solutions, …
	Government and Not-For-Profits including for example:
		Defense Information Systems Agency, Intelink Management Office, Interoperability Technology Association for Information Processing, Japan (INTAP) , Mitre, …
	Universities and Research Centers including for example:
		University of Bristol, University of Maryland, University of Southamptom, Stanford University, …
		DFKI (German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence), Forschungszentrum Informatik
	Invited Experts (largely academic non-W3C members)


	http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/ contains information concerning:
		Current Events
		Schedule/Milestones
		Membership
		Charter/History (including link to Face to Face Meeting)
		Background References & Related work – quite useful collection of links


http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/ftf1.html contains information on
	Participants (including at least 6 DAML contractors – Dean, Decker, Finin, Horrocks, McGuinness, Stein)
	Preparation Materials including:
		Use Cases: (drivers for language requirements)
			Collection Management and update– Schreiber
			Interoperability and update– Obrst
			Services - Decker
		General Requirements/Goals document and update– Heflin/McGuinness (indicators for modifications to DAML+OIL)
		DAML+OIL Issues and Experiences – Dean (feedback for DAML+OIL)
		Layering Issues and update– Patel-Schneider/Fensel
		Other issues such as tractability of decision procedures, full logs of meeting available.


	Collection Management - Schreiber - large data/text/image/multimedia/website sets with a common theme
	Interoperability – Obrst - capability to send and receive content supported by ontologies across applications with retention of semantics, the ability to map between different ontologies in a semantics preserving manner
	Services – Decker – services defined by examples of travel agent, advertising/matching services, automated configuration of services/devices…
	Requirements/Goals – McGuinness – requirements are specifications that must be met in order for WebOnt to be considered done.
	Results in a poll of results for requirements and goals


	W3C Note on Use Cases and Requirements/Goals
	Includes use cases on: web portals (Ontoweb), image collection, corporate web site management, design documentation, intelligent agents (AgentCities), and ubiquitous computing
	Design goals/motivations: shared ontologies, ontology evolution, inconsistency detection, ontology interoperability, expressiveness/scalability balance, ease of use, XML syntax, internationalization.
	Requirements: ontologies with unique identifiers, unambiguous term referencing, explicit ontology extension, commitment to ontologies, ontology metadata, versioning, class definition primitives, property definition primitives, datatypes, class and property equivalence, local unique names assumption, closed world statements, classes as instances, complex data types, cardinality constraints, lexical representations, character model, and Unicode support for internationalization.


	White paper on how requirements currently are supported by DAML+OIL (Class of requirements – Class A below)
		Ontology namespaces/inter-ontology reference: yes.
		Annotation/tagging of ontologies (some particular properties): yes?
		lexical representation (internationalization): almost
		unambiguous term referencing using URIs: yes
		ability to state unique names: no/somewhat
		uniqueness of Unicode strings: yes
		character set support: yes
		ontology management language features (versioning): ?

	A forthcoming layering proposal (a draft)


	WebOnt’s OWL today looks like it will be similar to DAML+OIL however some requirements will require modifications.
	Leads to TRANSITION issues
		WebOnt begins with stable language of DAML+OIL and its tool environments
		Expectations are that transition to OWL will not be difficult and will be able to be automatically done
		Timeframe for re-evaluation is expected to be about a month
	W3C integration is an excellent framework in which to facilitate both technology push (dissemination of language/tools) and pull (specifications/requirements from broad community). This connection accelerates the broad impact of the DAML program.


	instructions
		Review the Charter/History
		Ask your W3C Advisory Committee Representative to nominate you in email to: [email protected]
	Interested in staying literate? Review the:
		main web site
		Archives including irc chat logs
		Related mailing lists/archives such as RDF-Logic, W3C-rdfcore-wg archives, semantic web archives, rdf-rules, www archives, …


	Class B requirements
		Relational types (transitive, reflexive, symmetric,…)
		Class as instance
		Ontology mapping (equivalent to)
		Ontology partitioning
		Complex datatypes
		Closed world assertions
		Tagging/ grouping
	Class C
		Layering (both similar to oil and layering on rdfs)
		Effective decision procedures
		Commitment to portions of ontologies