Concept Web AllianceSustainability & Governance

Professor Carole GobleUniversity of Manchester, UK

carole.goble@manchester.ac.uk

Concept Web Alliance, New York Hall of Science, 8th May 2009

What is an Alliance?

An Alliance is a group of organizations working together to solve problems that cannot be solved alone.

• Consensus• Interoperability• Pooling

What is CWA?• A Forum: to unite stakeholders to

share complex Life Science data in a new way, through triples.

• A Facilitator: to promote the development of triple content services and promote the development of triple professional services.

• A Facility: A “warehouse”, distributor and agent for triples on behalf of contributors and users. Develop our own services.

What is CWA. A Forum.For commons-based sharing:• Bringing together commercial and public stakeholders in

life science data and scholarly publication• The definition and adoption of a common, interoperable

model of rich annotated triples and the mechanisms to generate and use them

• The specification of best practice, policies and use cases• The specification of compliance obligations to the model

and the rights to and governance of the content.

What is CWA. A Forum.

For commons-based sharing:• The promotion of widespread adoption of the

model and the triples described by it.• The identification and promotion of the

services needed to enable widespread adoption

• Discuss legal and access and reuse issues• Ensuring the adoption of current technologies,

standards and practices

What is CWA. A Facilitator.Work with established entities to identify,

develop, promote and oversee:• Triple Content services

– Base: identity, mapping, provenance tracking…– Tools: capture, browsing, distribution, access…– Added value: reasoning…

• Triple Professional services – Directory, Content aggregation, service

aggregation, quality control, guarantees and certification, governance of content suitability and compliance to model, stewardship, content access negotiation

What is CWA: A Facility on behalf of the community....• A “warehouse” for deposited triples.• A distributor for deposited triples.

– Infrastructure framework – Governance and legal framework– Financial and sustainability framework

• An agent for triple contributors and consumers.– Infrastructure framework – Governance and legal framework– Incentive models for contribution– Negotiate to access data services– Financial and sustainability framework

Linked Open Data

http://blog.larkc.eu/?tag=linked-data-cloud

Linked Open Data

http://blog.larkc.eu/?tag=linked-data-cloud

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Start Small. Incremental Value.

One thing well.

Triples. Triples. Triples.

Jam today. More Jam Tomorrow.

Roadmap and timetable: Year 1 - ProposalAugust 2009• Set up, incorporate the CWA, define governance• Get started on Working Groups (see next)January 2010• Define the triple model, exchange format and core

services• Define the technical framework for contribution,

distribution and access to a trustworthy triple pool• Define the operational and governance framework• Build a partnership with small number of key triple

suppliers, triple consumers, tool providers and users

Roadmap and timetable: Year 1 - ProposalApril 2010 • Pilot demonstrate CWA in operation and

issue a grand challenge• 1st CWA Conference • Secure funding and resource commitmentsMay 2010• Membership with key organisations• BioIT Alliance, Pistoia Alliance, PRISM, ELIXIR,

SAGE, CODATA, Shared Names…• W3C, LarKC, CrossRef, Creative Commons….• User groups in libraries, e.g. CNI

Organisational Structure - Proposal• Executive Committee / Secretariat• Governing Board (Magnet Group)• Operations Core team• Operations Working Groups

O1. Technical O2. ServicesO3. Content O4. Operation practiceChampioned by Core CWA team

• Members: charter, regular, sponsor• Invited advisors and specialists

Operations Working Groups

O1. Technical – identity, provenance, federation, discrimination, triple boundaries…

O2. Services - distribution, directory, warehouse, citation tracking, multi-linguality…

O3. Content – capture, quality, packaging (walled gardens vs jungles), mixed licensing on triples, negotiation to content…

O4. Operation practice – incentive models, micro-attribution, distribution, legal, claims arbitration, penalty models, policy, triple licenses…

Are these the right groups?Would you commit to joining in?

User oriented• Take up depends on user need• No user ghettos! Users blended into

Working Groups• User-driven demonstrator• No jargon - Triples? What triples?• Invisibility – incorporated in normal tools

and normal work practice• User groups: pick out early adopters and

triple-ready users• Clients of researchers and scholars:

Libraries, data centres, publishers

For a Facility

• ‘Guarantor’ of interoperability (quality control)• Spam protection• Aggregator (many-to-one-to-many)• Partnering with inferrers, disambiguators,

removers of redundancy (adding value)• (Re-)seller• Commission/royalty arrangements with sales

agents and triple proprietors

• Revenue stream.• Long term persistence• Management company?

Governance of Alliance• Purpose and scope• Administrative and management

structures • Powers and Procedures• Relationship to other organisations• Conduct, obligations and benefits• Membership

– Charter Members • major contribution, benefits, governing

votes– Regular Members

• Institutional (academic), Personal, Corporate

– Sponsors

Why Sustainability for CWA?• Alliance operation

– Organisation– Conferences / WGroups– Partnerships and advocacy– Legal advice

• Content and professional services operation– Small team– Define the guidelines and rule book– Marshal and seed a wider movement

Triples

Remove Ambiguity and

Redundancy

Curated

Observational

Smart Triples

Inferred;constructed

Knowledge Space

(node 1, unique ID) (node 2, unique ID)

< Source concept > < Target Concept > < Relations (edge) >

class date value owner condition Etc.

Remove Ambiguity and

Redundancy

Remove Ambiguity and

Redundancy

In these areas significant value is added to the triples

Where significant value is added…suggestions

…triples represent an economic value and can be charged for• Curated triples:

– charges at the discretion of the curator• Inferred triples:

– charges at the discretion of the inferrer• Disambiguated triples:

– charges at the discretion of disambiguator• Redundancy-removed triples:

– charges at the discretion of the redundancy remover• Observed triples

– can be charged for if they are taken from proprietary sources – by or on behalf of the proprietors

– peer-reviewed literature: charges at the discretion of the rights-holder

Triple sales and Open Data/Open Access

• Single triples: – free and open, via web search

interface– revenue from advertising?

• Collections: – at the discretion of owners– e.g. free if used publicly on

web, with possibility of advertising revenue

– paid-for if used behind firewall

bnode.org/blog/tag/linked%20data

Benjamin Nowack Blog

Revenue Streams

SUBSCRIPTIONSSPONSORSHIPFEES ADDED VALUE SERVICES

Dual model: Public and commercial

SUBSCRIPTIONS AND SPONSORSHIP• Subscriptions from public organisations and

research grants• Public sponsorship - by a major initiative, e.g.

BioBanking or research organisation• Corporate sponsorshipFEES • Membership fees and donations • Contributors: Certification fees, contribution

fees, tensioned to incentives• Consumers: Content subscription • Third party service providersADDED VALUE SERVICES• DOI assignment, certification• Royalties from charges for services and access

(a la iPhone)• Content services e.g. virtual market bundlesDual model: Public and commercial

Next stepsSet in motion the CWA 1st year roadmap• Incorporate and pump-prime• Working groups• Demonstrators

Sign up• Recruit members• Recruit partners• Recruit volunteers

Sustain

Participation on the journey…• Is the CWA useful to your organisation?• Would you sign up to the declaration? • Would you become a member of CWA?

What needs to be in place for you to commit?

• Would you help us develop the Alliance?

• Would you participate in one of the working groups?

• Where are the low hanging fruit?• Who should we partner with?• How would you like to participate

further? Would you sponsor an event?