Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
Norge er lagt til:
Topic Maps, Portals and “Seamless Knowledge”
Towards a
National Knowledge Base
with CultureNet Norway
leading the way
Lars Wenaas
Project Manager, Kulturnett
<lars.wenaas@abm-utvikling.no>
Steve Pepper
Chief Strategy Officer, Ontopia
Convenor, SC34/WG3
Editor, XML Topic Maps
<pepper@ontopia.net>
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/sk-en.ppt
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
Norge er lagt til:
What is CultureNet? (1)
•
CultureNet is the official doorway
to Norwegian culture on the ’net
–
•
Web site:
–
•
Ministry of Culture and Church
Affairs’ Internet priority
http://www.kulturnett.no/
To be relaunched at the end of May
–
Developed by Ontopia/Bouvet
–
100% based on the Topic Maps
standard
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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What is CultureNet? (2)
•
Also a network of regional and specialist partners
in Norway
–
Regional CultureNets in 6 counties
–
4 new ones on the way,
more expected in the near future
–
Member organizations for artists
Kulturnett Norge
Kulturnett
Akershus
Kulturnett
Hordaland
Kulturnett
Kulturnett
Sogn og Fjordane Troms
Kulturnett
Østfold
Kulturnett
Nord-Trøndelag
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faglige
samarbeidspartnere
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
Norge er lagt til:
CultureNet: Vision, goals og main principles
•
•
Vision and goals:
Main principles:
–
CultureNet should lead the dissemination and
retrieval of knowledge and culture on the ’net
–
CultureNet should be a centre for
experiences. More than just a portal.
–
(If we don’t have it, it doesn’t exist…)
–
–
A distributed Norwegian Knowledge Base
–
Together with partners an authority in the field
of culture
User-friendly services for a well-defined
audience: People with a general interest in
culture, not specialists
–
Focus on development, not operational
responsibility
–
Cross-sector information retrieval
–
Collaboration with regional and specialist
partners, and with other portals and content
providers
–
A major player in the “Information Common”
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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Why Topic Maps?
–
Enables common ownership of data with our partners
–
Encourages well-structured data and subject-based organization of information
–
Open and future-proof: CultureNet is expected live far into the future
–
Lays the foundation for information sharing with other portals and partners
Shared ownership of data
Regional partner1
Specialist partner1
Topic Map:
Regional partner2
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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What is Topic Maps?
•
ISO 13250:2003 Topic Maps
•
An international standard that (inter alia) is used to
–
Organize large bodies of information by subject
–
Support concept-based learning
–
Manage distributed knowledge
–
Represent complex rules and processes
–
Aggregate information and knowledge
•
= SEAMLESS KNOWLEDGE
•
But first, a digression about the National Knowledge
Base…
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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The story of the National Knowledge Base
•
In the Spring of 2001 the Department of Culture put out a call for tender for a
National Knowledge Base
–
•
New and existing players were encouraged to come up with new ideas
–
•
Two bids reached the final round, but both were rejected by the Minister of Education
Pål Steigan and Steve Pepper did just that
We proposed Topic Maps as the basis for an “open and democratic knowledge base
in the spirit of the French Encyclopédistes”
–
Chronicle published in Aftenposten 10th December 2001
SNL (Great Norwegian Encyclopedia)
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An open, democratic National Knowledge Base
Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
Norge er lagt til:
The Vision (1)
•
A Knowledge Base that is as easy to navigate
around as a book with a good index, and that can
be used whether one speaks Norwegian, Sami,
Urdu or some other language
•
A Knowledge Base that adapts to your profile –
be it age group, cultural background, interests,
etc. – and helps you weed out the information
that you are not interested in.
•
A Knowledge Base that has room for content
from both major encyclopedia publishers, and
also from many other contributors as well, from
large public and commercial organizations like
the broadcasting and publishing companies, the
Research Council and the National Library, to
universities and schools, lobby organizations,
minority groups – and even individuals.
•
A Knowledge Base you can look things up in by
WAP-phone to decide a lively pub discussion
about who scored the goals in the famous match
between Norway and England – and which year it
happened. Or when and where the opera Tosca
was first performed; or for that matter, who wrote
the libretto and which other libretti he was
responsible for.
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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The Vision (2)
•
A Knowledge Base written both by professional
lexicographers and other specialists – but also
by the Norwegian public.
•
A Knowledge Base that contains many disparate
views on one and the same issue, not just one,
semi-official “objekcive” truth; a Knowledge
Base that makes it possible for unashamedly
subjective opinions about the EU, gas power og
the war in Afghanistan to be heard, but which
also allows the user to differentiate between
them, know who stands behind which opinions,
and choose whom to trust.
•
A Knowledge Base that makes it possible for
Thea and the others in class 5A at Marienlyst to
create their own little “knowledge allotment” –
e.g. on the environmental effects of the
hamburger industy’s exploitation of the Amazon
– and hook it up to the National Knowledge Base
(with greetings from 5A), so that her friend Nina
in Trondheim and her cousin Tom in England can
see it (in Norwegian and English respectively),
reuse it, and add their own thoughts and
associations.
•
A Knowledge Base that attains such value that it
can be licensed to those who can afford to pay
for it – also outside Norway, and at the same time
so cost efficient to maintain that Norway can
afford to give it away as development aid.
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The model for an open National Knowledge
Base
“reality”
topic map
wrote
wrote
Nora
Henrik
Ibsen
Hedda
Gabler
Dr. Rank
Skien
Cap
Lex
SNL
NBL
Cap
Lex
Helmer
Et dukkehjem
born i
Andre emnekart
Krogstad
flettes inn…
Mrs. Linde
knowledge
SNL
SNL
Ibsencentre
Ibsencentre
information
Ibsencentre
Ibsencentre
SNL
Skien
council
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Ibsencentre
Ibsencentre
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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From Knowledge Base to Seamless Knowledge
•
This proposal from 2001 expressed a vision similar to that of the Common Information
Environment
•
It aroused a lot of interest but it was a little too early – Topic Maps needed to be tested in
practice first
•
But now the time has come to realise the vision, because…
•
The last couple of year have seen the advent of a whole slew of web sites and portals based
on Topic Maps in Norway
–
It all started with itu.no (Network for IT-Research and Competence in Education)
–
It continued with (inter alia) forskning.no (research) and the Consumers’ Portal
–
And it is about to reach new heights with KULTURNETT.NO (CultureNet)
•
As of today there are over a dozen Topic Maps-based portals in Norway
•
(Norway actually leads the world in this field)
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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Some Topic Maps portals in Norway
•
In production
•
Under development
•
http://www.itu.no
http://www.luna.itu.no
(Ministry of Education)
•
Tax Office
•
Office of the Prime Minister
•
Central Bureau of Statistics
•
Institute for Energy Technology
•
CultureNet Norway
•
http://www.forskning.no
http://www.nysgjerrigper.no
(Research Council and partners)
•
http://forbrukerportalen.no
(Consumers’ Association)
•
http://www.skifte.no
(Norwegian Defence)
•
http://www.hoyre.no++
(Norwegian Conservative Party)
•
http://matportalen.no
(Ministry of Agriculture)
•
http://www.udi.no
(Ministry of Justice)
For the full story of the rise of the Topic Maps
Portal in Norway, come to the seminar
“SEAMLESS KNOWLEDGE WITH TOPIC MAPS”
arranged by ABM-utvikling in September
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/sk-en.ppt
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Genetically modified food at forskning.no
Genetically modified food at Forbukerrådet
Genetically modified foodstuffs at Matportalen
Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
Norge er lagt til:
Three Topic Maps portals – one common subject
 one “virtual portal”
with seamless navigation in all directions
http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/sk-en.ppt
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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Towards Seamless Knowledge
•
Very little is required for these portals to achieve a simple but effective form of Seamless
Knowledge
•
They have already achieve subject-based organization of their content
•
From a technical viewpoint, only two pieces are required to complete the puzzle:
•
An identity mechanism
–
•
A knowledge exchange protocol
–
•
To make it possible to know when their subjects are the same
To enable information to be requested and exchanged automatically
(There must also be a real desire to share information, but that’s a political matter)
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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Piece #1: The identity mechanism
•
Simply put:
–
•
How can we know that “genetically modified food” is the same as “genetically modified
foodstuffs” (or “GM food”, or “genmodifisert mat”, for that matter)?
One thing is certain: Basing this on names won’t work
–
Synonyms, homonyms and polysemy make names a minefield
–
In any case we would like to support multiple languages
•
What we need are unique, “global” identifiers for all subjects of common interest
•
An impossible task?
•
Not if we go about it the right way…
•
The solution already exists in the form of a mechanism developed as part of the
Topic Maps standard:
–
That mechanism is called Published Subjects
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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Published Subjects
•
A distributed mechanism for assigning unique, global identifiers
•
Based on URLs, e.g. for the Ibsen Museum in Oslo:
http://psi.kulturnett.no/museum/ibsen-museet
•
But with a couple of rather special characteristics:
1) The mechanism is two-sided – it works for both computers and humans
2) The mechanism works from the “bottom up” – not from the “top down”
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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For computers AND humans
•
–
•
•
This URL is called a subject identifier
The URL is the address of a document that can be interpreted
by a human and indicates the identity of the subject
–
•
subject
A subject is identified via a URL
Ibsen-museet:
Leiligheten i Arbiens
gate i Oslo hvor
dikteren Henrik
Ibsen bodde de
siste 11 år av sitt liv,
fra
1895 til 1906.
This document is called a subject indicator
Computers use the identifier
–
Simple comparison of string values:
–
Identical values mean that the subject is the same
–
(Different values just means that the two subject cannot
necessarily be regarded as being the same)
subject
indicator
Humans use the indicator
–
By inspecting the document one can be sure that the
identifier does not refer to, say, the Henrik Ibsen Museum
in Skien (http://psi.kulturnett.no/museum/ibsens_venstop)
subject
identifier
subject indicator
+ subject identifer
= PSI
topic
Ibsen Museum
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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A bottom up approach
•
Earlier attempts to create global identifiers from the top down have failed
–
(The classic example is URNs – Uniform Resource Names)
•
Published Subjects uses the opposite approach…
•
Anyone can create a PSI (Published Subject Indicator)
–
The process is bottom up
•
–
•
Open and anarchical – just like the Web itself
We envision an evolutionary, darwinistisk process
•
“Survival of the most trusted”
•
The more authoritative the publisher is, the more chance there is that his identifiers will achieve
widespread use
•
A situation with multiple identifiers for the same subject is easy to handle
In time, more and more stable sets of “trustable” identifiers will emerge
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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Piece #2: The Knowledge Exchange Protocol
Hi! Do you know the subject
“genetically modified food”?*
Sure. My URL is:
http://matportalen.no/Matp
ortalen/Emner/gmo
http://matportalen.no/Matportalen/Emner/gmo
Portal A: forskning.no
This scenario is Stage 1 of Seamless Knowledge
and will soon be put into practice using TMRAP.
In Stage 2 it will be possible to transfer content
from one portal to another using (topic) maplets
Portal B: Matportalen
* The actual question was: Got any gen on http://psi.forbrukerportalen.no/mat/genmodifisert_mat?
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Redaksjonen av Kulturnett
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CultureNet and the “Information Common”
•
CultureNet places great emphasis on Published Subjects
•
Every subject that is published on CultureNet will have its own PSI,
–
Whether it is an “ontological” subject
•
–
http://psi.kulturnett.no/ontologi/museum
http://psi.kulturnett.no/ontologi/person
http://psi.kulturnett.no/ontologi/postadresse
http://psi.kulturnett.no/ontologi/bor_i
Or any other kind of subject
•
•
museum
person
postal address
lives in
Blaafarveværket
Nesna Local Library
Gol Local Archive
Erlend Loe
http://psi.kulturnett.no/museum/blaafarvevaerket
http://psi.kulturnett.no/bibliotek/2182800
http://psi.kulturnett.no/arkiv/gol_bygdearkiv
http://psi.kulturnett.no/person/erlend_loe
Thus CultureNet takes its share of reponsibility for building a “Semantic Superhighway” …
and assumes its place in the “Information Common”
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Published Subject Indicator for
Publisert temaindikator for
Ψps
BLAAFARVEVÆRKET
http://psi.kulturnett.no/museum/blaafarvevaerket
i
Blaafarveværket: Norwegian museum in Modum kommune in Buskerud fylke
based on the former cobolt mining industry. Once the leading factory of cobalt blue
pigment in the world, Blaafarveværket is today a cultural museum. Its annual art
exhibitions are among the most important in Scandinavia.
Blaafarveværket: Museum på Modum i Buskerud basert på det gamle
koboltgruveanlegget. Anlegget består av en rekke fredede bygninger som ligger på
sitt opprinnelige sted. Her arrangeres konserter og utstillinger, blant annet av
bildende kunst, og her finnes også bygdemuseets samlinger.
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PSIs and the role of the Norwegian Digital Library
•
It is not the Norwegian Digital Library project’s role to create identifiers for the whole of
Norway
–
No organization can or should take on such a role. It must be a distributed task.
•
But the Norwegian Digital Library can play a key role in other areas:
1)
By defining PSIs in its own field
2)
By encouraging others to create PSI sets
3)
By offering services for the discovery of PSI sets
–
4)
By offering services for the discovery of PSI-labelled content
–
•
It has to be easy for humans to find relevant PSIs
Then portals can be connected automatically
There is a need for a specific project to develop such services. Shall we call it psireg.no?
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Seamless Knowledge – a preliminary conclusion
•
Seamless Knowledge is definitely within reach!
–
•
•
Subject-based organization of content and use of PSIs are a
necessary precondition
–
Basing this on Topic Maps provides the safest foundation
–
(But Topic Maps is not an absolute requirement provided PSIs
are used…)
Rule #1: Every subject shall be given a PSI
–
•
(Reuse one that already exists or create your own!)
Rule #2: All content shall be attached to PSIs
–
•
(And Norway is in a good position already…)
(As topic map “occurrences” or via Dublin Core “subject” fields)
The Norwegian Digital Library can play a key role by promoting
discovery mechanisms for
1) PSIs, and
2) PSI-labelled content
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Finally…
•
Cato the Elder used to conclude all his speeches in the Roman Senate with the famous
words “Cartago delenda est”
•
Allow me (once again) to conclude with these words:
Norway’s National Knowledge Base
must be based on Topic Maps!
For more information contact Lars Wenaas (ABM-utvikling), Steve Pepper (Ontopia) or Stian Danenbarger (Bouvet)
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