The 2003 Dublin Core Conference On-line Proceedings: Building Metadata-Based Navigation Using Semantic Web Standards : The 2003 Dublin Core Conference On-line Proceedings: Building Metadata-Based Navigation Using Semantic Web Standards Bradley P. Allen
Siderean Software LLC
Joseph T. Tennis
The Information School, University of Washington
Overview : Overview Metadata-based systems
Faceted navigation as a metadata-based system
Faceted navigation and RDF
DC2003 Proceedings: a case study
“View source” for the Semantic Web
Metadata-based systems : Metadata-based systems From presentation to information architecture as the central focus in specifying and implementing information access [Lider and Mosoiu 2003]
Specify applications using:
Ontologies
Formal specifications of how to represent concepts, and instances and the relations between them
Controlled vocabularies
Instances
Application profiles
Metadata is interpreted to generate presentation and behavior
Faceted navigation as a type of metadata-based system : Faceted navigation as a type of metadata-based system Metadata may be faceted, i.e., have a set of properties whose ranges form a near-orthogonal set of controlled vocabularies
Creator: Dickens, Charles
Subject: Arsenic, Antimony
Location: World > U.S. > California > Venice
Facets form a frame of reference for information overview, access and discovery
Other properties serve as landmarks and cues
Based on work from the library science community now moving into computational realization [Ranganathan 1967], [Bates 1990], [Hearst 2000]
Faceted navigation and Semantic Web standards : Faceted navigation and Semantic Web standards Enabling more effective retrieval is a major goal for the Semantic Web (SW)
RDF [Beckett 2003] is the fundamental representation for metadata in the SW
RDF Schema for defining ontologies
RDF for describing collections of instances and CV terms
Our work demonstrates how RDF can be used to specify faceted navigation
Building metadata-based systems with RDF : Building metadata-based systems with RDF Define/reuse ontologies expressed in RDF(S)
Classes for defining instances and controlled vocabularies
Properties for facets and additional attributes
Import/transform instances into an RDF representation
Resources referred to in place through URIs
Write application profiles in terms of RDF
DC 2003 Online Proceedings Project : DC 2003 Online Proceedings Project Further the goals of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) by providing DC-centric faceted navigation of online proceedings
Show that RDF is usable as a notation and exchange format for information architecture
Project timeline : Project timeline July 2003
Initial experiment using DC 2002 site
August 2003
Initial proposal to DCMI
Iterative prototyping involving
Selection and development of ontologies
Generation of instance metadata
Specification of application profile
September 2003
Design and editing of controlled vocabulary
Final iterations on site pages
Launch at conference
Ontology : Ontology Reused ontologies and metadata vocabularies
Papers and posters: Dublin Core [Beckett, Miller and Brickley 2002]
Creators: Friend Of A Friend (FOAF) [Brickley and Miller 2003]
Subjects: Thesaurus Interchange Format (TIF) [Matthews, Miles and Wilson 2003
Added relatively few properties and classes in a conference ontology
Events
Tracks
Ontology for conferences : Ontology for conferences
Presentation
Paper
Conference Track
Track
The track that the given paper is in.
Controlled vocabulary : Controlled vocabulary Author-assigned keywords used as source materials
Combined author-assigned with editorial judgment about the CV terms and structure
Seed thesaurus : Seed thesaurus
Wrapping author-assigned keywords : Wrapping author-assigned keywords
Relational Database
Relationship metadata
Requirements
Resource discovery
Resource-level metadata
SCORM
Adding editorial control : Adding editorial control
Domain Metadata
Governments
Federal Geographic Data Committee Metadata
Geospatial Metadata
Government Agency Metadata
Instance metadata : Instance metadata Paper and poster metadata automatically extracted from author submissions
Ad hoc Perl script
Manual review and cleanup of generated RDF
Mostly Dublin Core with some application-specific properties
Creator and organization metadata manually collated from paper and poster metadata
Represented in FOAF (but not in the manner in which FOAF is typically used)
Papers and posters : Papers and posters http://www.siderean.com/dc2003/103_paper-22.pdf
Two Paths to Interoperable Metadata
This paper describes a prototype for a Web service that translates between pairs of metadata schemas. Despite a current trend toward encoding in XML and XSLT, we present arguments for a design that features a more distinct separation of syntax from semantics. The result is a system that auomates routine processes, has a well-defined place for human input, and achieves a clean separation of the document data model, the document translations, and the machinery of the application.
Creators and organizations : Creators and organizations
Greenberg, Jane
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Application profile : Application profile Expressed in XRBR (XML For Retrieval By Reformulation)
Specifies a view over (possibly heterogeneous) RDF schemas with hints as to its interpretation and use for faceted navigation
Provides a language for query reformulation and refinement in the context of navigation
Query: “give me all resources where…” + advice
Response: result set + suggested query refinements + original query
Application profile: specifying dimensions : Application profile: specifying dimensions
…
Application profile: specifying hierarchical facets : Application profile: specifying hierarchical facets …
…
Application profile: flattening graphs : Application profile: flattening graphs …
…
Interpreting the metadata : Interpreting the metadata Metadata loaded into the Seamark navigation server [Siderean 2002]
Bases navigation on metadata imported from relational databases and in XML documents
Automatically generates faceted retrieval interfaces for navigation from this metadata
Provides Web services for integration of metadata-based navigation into existing Internet and intranet applications
Seamark server hosted at co-location facility and integrated into main conference site
Setup : Setup
Automatically generated interface : Automatically generated interface
Alternate view: creators : Alternate view: creators
Alternate view: subjects : Alternate view: subjects
Site start page : Site start page
Site drilldown : Site drilldown
Related work : Related work SIMILE [Bass and Butler 2003]
Haystack [Quan, Huyhn and Karger 2003]
XFML [Van Dijck 2003]
FacetMap [Wilson 2002]
Future work : Future work Controlled vocabulary refinements
As the collection grows we’ll need to modify the CV
Will add more structure and terms
Will develop a more rule-based subject description
Future work : Future work Match IA with Digital Library concerns
Utilize Adobe metadata fields (another metadata layer)
Establish citation best-practice advice (another metadata component)
Work with DCMI on institutionalizing this structure (another metadata component and interoperability issue)
Future work : Future work Development work underway
Integrate DC 2002, DC 2004 work and additional resources
Present results at DC 2004 and perhaps establish as core publication site for DC
Issues : Issues Scaling will depend on having creators provide metadata with submissions
Open problem in metadata creation
RDF(S) in the wild is immature, frustrating reuse
DC, RSS 1.0 are important counterexamples
Rapidly evolving vocabularies make standardization tricky
TIF(S) now SKOS!
User interfaces for faceted navigation are immature as well
Anecdotal feedback is positive, but usability studies are just beginning
The good news: now decoupled from the underlying architecture and implementation of navigation
Conclusions : Conclusions RDF(S) can be used as a vehicle for specifying information architecture
Supports reuse of ontologies, CVs
Faceted navigation can be built with this approach
Systems can be generated by individuals in hours or minutes
Normal people can and are willing to do this
An existence proof for “view source” for the Semantic Web
References : References [Lider and Mosoiu 2003] Brett Lider and Anca Mosoiu, “Building a Metadata-Based Website.” Boxes and Arrows, http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/building_a_metadatabased_website.php, April 21, 2003.
[Ranganathan 1967] Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan, Prolegomena to Library Classification. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. 1967.
[Bates 1990] Marcia J. Bates, "Design for a Subject Search Interface and Online Thesaurus for a Very Large Records Management Database." Proceedings of the 53rd ASIS Annual Meeting 27 (1990): 20-28.
[Hearst 2000] Marti Hearst, “Next Generation Web Search: Setting Our Sites.” IEEE Data Engineering Bulletin, Special issue on Next Generation Web Search, Luis Gravano (Ed.), September 2000.
[Beckett 2003] Dave Beckett, ed., “RDF/XML Syntax Specification (Revised).” W3C Proposed Recommendation, http://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-syntax-grammar/, 15 December 2003.
[Beckett, Miller and Brickley 2002] Dave Beckett, Eric Miller and Dan Brickley, “Expressing Simple Dublin Core in RDF/XML.” http://dublincore.org/documents/dcmes-xml/, July 31, 2002.
[Brickley and Miller 2003] Dan Brickley and Libby Miller, “FOAF Vocabulary Specification.” RDFWeb Namespace Document, http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/, 16 August 2003.
[Matthews, Miles and Wilson 2003] Brian Matthews, Alistair Miles, and Michael Wilson, “Modelling Thesauri for the Semantic Web.” http://www.w3c.rl.ac.uk/SWAD/thesaurus/tif/deliv81/final.html, 2003.
[Siderean 2002] Siderean Software LLC, “From Site Search to the Semantic Web.” http://www.siderean.com/SemanticWebWhitePaper.pdf, February 2002.
[Bass and Butler 2003] Mick Bass and Mark H. Butler, “Introduction to SIMILE.” http://web.mit.edu/simile/www/documents/introduction/introduction.html, June 20, 2003.
[Quan, Huynh and Karger 2003] Dennis Quan, David Huynh, and David R. Karger, “Haystack: A Platform for Authoring End User Semantic Web Applications.” International Semantic Web Conference, http://haystack.lcs.mit.edu/papers/iswc2003-haystack.pdf, September 2003.
[van Dijck 2003] Peter Van Dijck, “Introduction to XFML.” XML.com, http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/01/22/xfml.html, January 22, 2003.
[Wilson 2002] Travis Wilson, “FacetMap: Your Home for Faceted Classification.” http://facetmap.com, 2002.