a semantic wiki based light-weight web application model

A Semantic Wiki Based Light-Weight Web Application

Model

Jie Bao, Li Ding, Rui Huang,

Paul R. Smart, Dave Brains, and Gareth Jones

Presenter: Zhenning Shangguan

Dec. 07, 2009

Outline

• Introduction

• Semantic Wiki Based Light-weight Web Application Model

• Proof-of-concept prototypes– RPI Map (http://map.rpi.edu)– CNL Wiki (http://tw.rpi.edu/proj/cnl)

• Conclusions & Future Work

Web 2.0 Applications

• Success of Web 2.0 applications– Simple publishing– Social interaction– …

• However, limitations do exist– User-contributed structured data– Diversity of data access paradigm

Web App Models

Server Side

Users’ Control

Web ServerWeb Server

Database/FilesDatabase/Files

Web BrowserWeb Browser

Conventional Model

Server Side

Users’ Control


Ajax EngineAjax Engine

Web/Data ServerWeb/Data Server


AJAX Model

Server Side

Wiki E

ngineW

iki Engine

Users’ Control


Wiki Func.Wiki Func.

Wiki-based Model



Wiki UIWiki UI

Semantic Wiki

Semantic Wiki

Multi-user content creation and editing

Browser-based, cross-platformeasy to use

Supports semantic annotations for automated processing and inference

Semantic MediaWiki (SMW)

• It is the most popular semantic wiki system extending MediaWiki (the Wikipedia’s platform)

6

Mediawiki: What you edit what you see

Semantic MediaWiki

7

SMW: What you edit(Modeling Script)

what you see

typed link (property)

To author knowledge

Semantic MediaWiki

8

SMW: What you edit(Querying Script)

what you see

To retrieve knowledge

Semantic Wiki

• Potential to serve as a platform that supports– Rich data modeling– Transparent data processing– Social programming

• Thus promoting a new web application model

SemWiki-based Model

Server Side

Sem

Wiki E

ngineS

emW

iki Engine

Users’ Control


SemWiki DataSemWiki Data

Wiki Func.Wiki Func.

SemWiki-based Model



Wiki UIWiki UI

Structured data from SemWiki annotations

Parser functions to process the structured data

Wiki scripts to build application interface

Both structured data and wiki scripts are accessible!

Data Modeling

• Annotations from all wiki pages forms an RDF graph

• Can be considered as a virtual abstraction layer over the server-side database/file system– Evolving knowledge base– Collective CRUD operations supported

Data Processing

• Extensions of MediaWiki support light-weight data processing– Parser functions– Variables– Datatypes– Control flows

(Please see http://tw.rpi.edu/wiki/ASWC2009Bao#Links for details)

User Interface

• Application UI is defined by a set of wiki pages

• Wiki scripts can be used to customize UI– Templates and queries to control look-and-

feel of wiki pages– Semantic Forms facilitate content editing

• Embedded JavaScript code to enrich UI– More interactive and intuitive visualization

elements

Case Study

RPI Maphttp://map.rpi.edu

CNL Wikihttp://tw.rpi.edu/proj/cnl

RPI Map

• A mash-up map application based on Semantic MediaWiki

• Provides location-based information in the RPI campus

• Integrates data from various external sources

• Visualizes integrated data using Google Map

http://map.rpi.edu

CNL Wiki

• Collaborative OWL ontology building application based on Semantic MediaWiki

• Controlled Natural Language (CNL) used to facilitate understanding of generated knowledge statements

http://tw.rpi.edu/proj/cnl

Highlights

RPI Map CNL Wiki

Data Modeling•Template as Schema

•OWL Modeling

Data Processing•Stored Query

•Data Cleansing

•Template as Function

•CNL Generation

User Interface•Query-based Content Generation

•Automatic form Generation

Template as Schema (RPI Map)

• Templates are used to define classes in the application

• Each template defines a set of attributes for the corresponding class

Schema definition in DB-based applications

Template defines the data structure for each class in RPI Map

OWL Modeling

• Developed SMW-mOWL, a meta-model extension to SMW, to address expressivity constraints of SMW (Bao et al., 2009)– In SMW-mOWL, an ontology is represented u

sing a set of wiki pages– Each wiki page encodes a certain ontology en

tity (class, property, individual) using wiki templates

– Each wiki template defines axiom/annotation information for an ontology entity

Class(Rabbit partial intersectionOf(animal restriction(eat someValuesFrom(FreshVegetable)))

OWL: “Rabbit eats some fresh vegetable”

SMW-mOWL

Wiki templates to define axiom/annotation information.

Form-based editing interface associated with templates

OWL Class Templates

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Similarly, we have templates for properties and individuals

Query-based Content Generation

• Semantic queries can be used to find desired information and generate the UI

{{#ask:[[Category:Event]] [[has end time::> {{LOCALMONTHNAME}} {{LOCALDAY}}, {{LOCALYEAR}} 00:00]]}}

Semantic query to find today’s events and render them in a table

With little efforts, we can generate a map of today’s events based on the previous query

CNL Generation

• A set of templates are defined and used to generate CNL statements for ontology entities

• Supported CNL’s– Rabbit– ACE (Attempto Controlled English)

• Able support other CNL’s by defining corresponding templates

OWL Abstract SyntaxClass(Rabbit partial intersectionOf(animal restriction(eat someValuesFrom(FreshVegetable)))

Template:getClassDeclaration

Template:getConceptRelationAssertions

Template:getSomeRestrictionAssertion

Conclusion

• Identified a light-weight web application model based on semantic wikis

• Presented two prototype systems, RPI Map and CNL Wiki, based on this model

• The model represents emerging trends in web application development– Making structured data publicly available to

facilitate data reuse– Making data processing open to support

customized application development

Future Work

• Improve prototype systems to show benefits of the proposed model

• Investigate application of our proposed model on other platforms (e.g., Drupal)

• Development of extensions for SMW to better support our model

• We expect the network effect of our model as more platforms adopt it

Questions?

• Thank you!

a semantic wiki based light-weight web application model

Technology

cnl wiki http

structured data wiki

introduction semantic

semantic wiki potential

set of wiki pages wiki

wiki pages semantic

integrated data

data structure