Actions

Ontolog Forum

OntologySummit Theme: Community Brainstorm Session - Thu 2014-10-09

Session Co-chairs: MichaelGruninger (IAOA; U of Toronto) & MatthewWest

Topic: Brainstorm Session on the OntologySummit2015 Theme: Community Input & Planning

Archives

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, 09-Oct-2014
  • Start Time: 9:30am PDT / 12:30pm EDT / 6:30pm CEST / 5:30pm BST / 1630 UTC
  • Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hours
  • Dial-in:
    • Phone (US): +1 (425) 440-5100 ... (long distance cost may apply)
      • ... [ backup nbr: (315) 401-3279 ]
      • when prompted enter Conference ID: 843758#
    • Skype: join.conference (i.e. make a skype call to the contact with skypeID="joinconference") ... (generally free-of-charge, when connecting from your computer ... ref.)
      • when prompted enter Conference ID: 843758#
      • Unfamiliar with how to do this on Skype? ...
        • Add the contact "join.conference" to your skype contact list first. To participate in the teleconference, make a skype call to "join.conference", then open the dial pad (see platform-specific instructions below) and enter the Conference ID: 843758# when prompted.
      • Can't find Skype Dial pad? ...
        • for Windows Skype users: Can't find Skype Dial pad? ... it's under the "Call" dropdown menu as "Show Dial pad"
        • for Linux Skype users: please note that the dial-pad is only available on v4.1 (or later; or on the earlier Skype versions 2.x,) if the dialpad button is not shown in the call window you need to press the "d" hotkey to enable it. ... (ref.)
  • Shared-screen support ... (to be advised)
  • In-session chat-room url: http://webconf.soaphub.org/conf/room/summit_20141009
    • instructions: once you got access to the page, click on the "settings" button, and identify yourself (by modifying the Name field from "anonymous" to your real name, like "JaneDoe").
    • You can indicate that you want to ask a question verbally by clicking on the "hand" button, and wait for the moderator to call on you; or, type and send your question into the chat window at the bottom of the screen.
    • thanks to the soaphub.org folks, one can now use a jabber/xmpp client (e.g. gtalk) to join this chatroom. Just add the room as a buddy - (in our case here) summit_20141009@soaphub.org ... Handy for mobile devices!
  • Discussions and Q & A:
    • Nominally, when a presentation is in progress, the moderator will mute everyone, except for the speaker.
    • To un-mute, press "*7" ... To mute, press "*6" (please mute your phone, especially if you are in a noisy surrounding, or if you are introducing noise, echoes, etc. into the conference line.)
    • we will usually save all questions and discussions till after all presentations are through. You are encouraged to jot down questions onto the chat-area in the mean time (that way, they get documented; and you might even get some answers in the interim, through the chat.)
    • During the Q&A / discussion segment (when everyone is muted), If you want to speak or have questions or remarks to make, please raise your hand (virtually) by clicking on the "hand button" (lower right) on the chat session page. You may speak when acknowledged by the session moderator (again, press "*7" on your phone to un-mute). Test your voice and introduce yourself first before proceeding with your remarks, please. (Please remember to click on the "hand button" again (to lower your hand) and press "*6" on your phone to mute yourself after you are done speaking.)
  • RSVP to gruninger@mie.utoronto.ca with your affiliation appreciated, ... or simply just by adding yourself to the "Expected Attendee" list below (if you are a member of the community already.)
  • Please note that this session may be recorded, and if so, the audio archive is expected to be made available as open content, along with the proceedings of the call to our community membership and the public at-large under our prevailing open IPR policy.

Attendees

Abstract

The OntologySummit is an annual series of events (first started by Ontolog and NIST in 2006) that involves the ontology community and communities related to each year's theme chosen for the summit. The Ontology Summit program is now co-organized by Ontolog, NIST, NCOR, NCBO, IAOA, NCO_NITRD along with the co-sponsorship of other organizations that are supportive of the Summit goals and objectives.

While the actual events of OntologySummit2015 will be rolled out between January and April of 2015, we have decided we will try to plan for it early. An initial round of input has already been received, as part of the OntologySummit2014 postmortem session on 2014.05.15. During that session, the community also agreed on having today's session, so we can dedicate some quality time to specifically discuss the possibilities and options on the choice of Themes for OntologySummit2015. This session will, therefore, be devoted to explore the theme(s) and topics that would best allow us to leverage next year's OntologySummit.

Ideas and suggestions collected so far are available at: OntologySummit/Suggestions. Members of the community are encouraged to continuously and asynchronously provide further input via this wiki page and via the [ontology-summit] mailing list as well.

See developing details on the next Summit's homepage at: OntologySummit2015

Agenda

Brainstorm Session on the OntologySummit2015 Theme: Community Input & Planning

Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call
  • 3. Any other business (10 min.)

Proceedings

In-session_Chat-Transcript

[09:27] Michael Grüninger: Welcome everyone to the Ontology Summit 2015 Community Brainstorming Session!

[09:36] Michael Grüninger: 1. Overview & introduction 2. Open discussion: explore the theme(s) and topics that the community would want to see covered in Ontology Summit 2015 3. Any other business 4. Recap Actions, Summary & Wrap-up

[09:42] Christoph Lange: Excuse me, a question about the new wiki. Seems the accounts of the old wiki don't work here. But, at http://ontolog-02.cim3.net/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&returnto=WikiHomePage, how do I create a new account?

Ken Baclawski: I am developing a server for handling the Ontolog accounts. This would give us some control over account creation and maintenance while still keeping Ontolog an open forum.

[09:46] Mike Bennett: Topics 1, 2 and 4 are potentially almost the same thing: what lessons have been developed in previous summits, how does one define the discipline of ontological engineering around this and how to write a book that presents this.

[09:48] Terry Longstreth: Reasoning with ontologies could be broken into Machine and Human reasoning; the first would probably be software engineering oriented, the second would explore the application of ontologies as a tool of thought.

[09:49] Terry Longstreth: The initial outline for the textbook could be derived from Slide 4

[09:50] Steve Ray: @Terry: I like your idea of training materials.

[09:51] Matthew West: I would be keen that we worked towards a deliverable (other than a communique).

[09:52] Todd Schneider: Perhaps, if we go with the text book notion, then the summit could produce the outline with some degree of content/detail. And in place of the usual communique, a set of training material. In addition, as a Hack-a-thon theme, mining the Ontolog forum and past summit materials.

[09:52] Steve Ray: @Todd: I meant to say Todd, not Terry!

[09:52] Michael Grüninger: Combining topics might lead to something like Applied Ontology / Ontological Engineering Body of Knowledge

[09:53] Leo Obrst: Yes, the textbook idea can encompass the other topics, since many of the previous summit themes would probably be separate chapters in the book.

[09:53] Terry Longstreth: @Steve: Thanks. I also like Leo's idea of using the titles of previous summits as topics.

[09:54] Todd Schneider: How would a body of knowledge be presented?

[09:54] Joel Bender: I like the idea of a textbook, and I would like to help packaging into a variety of consumable forms (eDoc, HTML, PDF, LaTeX, etc)

[09:55] Mike Bennett: Question is how we structure the Summit activities to pull this BoK together?

[09:55] Matthew West: There is a large amount of information from the ontolog presentations, as well as the summit and even the ontolog forum email list. But it is not organized in a way that is useful. Mining it and presenting it in a coherent way and identifying gaps would be useful.

[09:56] Joel Bender: I would also like some kind Q&A and the ends of the chapters to review

[09:56] Mike Bennett: Ken's point is a good one - part of structuring this is identifying the skills. I'd add we're looking both at the pre-requisite skills and the skills to be developed through training.

[09:56] Todd Schneider: Ken, training materials usually have examples and student problems.

[09:56] Mike Dean: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_of_Knowledge for quite a few examples of BOKs

[09:57] Todd Schneider: Ken, could training materials be extended to a 'complete' text book?

[09:57] Steve Ray: I strongly agree with what Mike Bennett is saying. I'm always amazed at the longevity and continued use of Natasha Noy's old old paper on how to create an ontology.

[09:58] Todd Schneider: It's not incompatible to have multiple outcomes/deliverables from the summit.

[09:59] Mike Bennett: Examples ... and counter-examples?

[09:59] Matthew West: Should we use a traditional wiki approach? Should part of what we produce be some articles on wikipedia?

[09:59] Joel Bender: Could the training materials be in a Self Paced Instruction format, and/or a MOOC?

[09:59] Mark Underwood1: Agree that Wikipedia contribs is useful, though requires dedicated attention if the current "owners" are vigilant about the subj

[10:00] Mike Bennett: Apologies, i need to drop off the audio now.

[10:00] Todd Schneider: Joel, I would think the former. But a BoK might take the place of MOOC.

[10:00] Steve Ray: I have to go also. I'll review the chat later.

[10:00] Leo Obrst: @KenBaclawski: we could even consider a focused example that embodies the exercises and which spans all the chapters, with different aspects of course.

[10:01] Ken Baclawski: It would be very helpful to have realistic examples in full detail using best practices. Too much of what I see is much too high-level for a course. These would be very useful even if they are just a disparate collection of examples.

[10:01] Michael Grüninger: Ram D. Sriram: What is the role / purpose of the Summit?

[10:02] Michael Grüninger: Ram D. Sriram: Applied Ontology and the Internet of Things

[10:03] Joel Bender: +1

[10:03] Mark Underwood1: IoT is plenty big, maybe too big

[10:03] Ken Baclawski: @[09:56] Todd Schneider: They often do have examples, but they are not necessarily very realistic. Just look at any Database textbook. The examples are mostly not very good.

[10:04] Joel Bender: But the typical presentations of IoT focus on smaller realms like Home Automation, which should be focused enough for a chapter.

[10:04] Mark Underwood1: I just wrote a short blog post on smart buildings and the ontology needs there are legion

[10:05] Ram D. Sriram1: That is an effort going on at NIST

[10:05] Terry Longstreth: @Ram: perhaps the summit could expand / generalize your idea to base the Summit on "Ontology aspects of Current Social and Technology trends "

[10:05] Ali Hashemi: Re the textbook idea - using part of the summit to identify how to utilize the web+browsers to deliver content could be something of interest, c.f. http://www.nature.com/nature_education/interactive_textbooks

[10:05] Michael Grüninger: Christopher Spottiswoode: Possible topic related to the activities of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

[10:06] Mark Underwood1: http://www.nist.gov/nstic/

[10:06] Ram D. Sriram1: @Terry: We call that Smart Networked Systems and Societies, i.e., a connected network of Internet of Things and Social Networks

[10:06] Ken Baclawski: The idea of developing realistic examples could be combined with the retrospective idea. Lots of great examples were developed in the previous summits, but they need to be collected and documented.

[10:07] Leo Obrst: @ChristopherSpottiswoode: can you provide some references to this?

[10:07] Terry Longstreth: Trends so far: nstic, internet of things, disaster responses - http://www.gdacs.org/...

[10:08] Leo Obrst: Thanks, all.

[10:09] Ken Baclawski: @[10:00] Leo Obrst: Yes, running examples are valuable.

[10:10] Ram D. Sriram1: Here is a link to an animated video of NSTIC: http://www.nist.gov/nstic/animation.html

[10:10] Mark Underwood1: https://www.idecosystem.org/

[10:11] Ken Baclawski: @[09:57] Todd Schneider: Yes, good examples and training materials are an excellent basis for a textbook.

[10:11] Ali Hashemi: @KenBaclawski - in an online textbook, one could use ontology best practices in building the resource itself.

[10:11] Ram D. Sriram1: Regarding NSTIC, I think you might want a more general topic about the role of ontologies in privacy and cybersecurity. Not clear whether we can get enough people to take about this.

[10:12] Terry Longstreth: @Ram - I didn't mean Social networks (not only, anyway), but changes in societies and cultures and how can ontologies help with evolution/devolution.

[10:12] Mark Underwood1: RE the Sec & Privacy - I'm on the NIST Big Data WG S&P subgroup ... longer conversation on that available

[10:13] Mark Underwood1: http://bigdatawg.nist.gov/home.php

[10:13] Ken Baclawski: @[13:11] Ali Hashemi: Indeed, one should always "eat one's own dogfood".

[10:20] Mark Underwood1: In the Big Data WG's, this is the "Variety" dimension, especially when PII + IoT combine to weaken anonymizaiton

[10:22] Mike Dean: Internet of Things is topical - I'd keep that term in the title

[10:23] Leo Obrst: I think that the "Reasoning with Ontologies" topic can also be an aspect of the textbook, and in addition bring in folks from the mini-series last year on this topic, which we may still explore in additional sessions this year.

[10:23] Ram D. Sriram1: I think reasoning could be a part on any of the topics discussed. Will we get enough people to talk about this

[10:24] Ali Hashemi: I would agree with the speaker that it's too early in the technology cycle for IoT

[10:24] Mark Underwood1: @MikeDean - Agree IoT will attract more architect interest

[10:24] Leo Obrst: How about the Internet of Abstract Things? ;)

[10:25] Michael Grüninger: Potential topic arising from the discussion: Sociotechnical Aspects of Applied Ontology

[10:25] Ken Baclawski: @[10:23] Leo Obrst: I agree. Any realistic example will involve reasoning issues, and one part of the solution will involve selecting an appropriate reasoning approach/technology.

[10:25] Todd Schneider: Leo,

[10:26] Todd Schneider: Leo, What's abstract? Or abstract with respect to what?

[10:26] Christopher Spottiswoode: @LeoObrst: nstic.gov for that context. For my take on it, please be patient for my post to the Summit list.

[10:28] Mike Dean: I think it's actually the perfect time for IoT

[10:29] Todd Schneider: Have to go to another meeting. Cheers.

[10:29] Leo Obrst: Also, a possible other topic/theme: information (or even physical) artifacts and specifications. These notions come up all the time, and there is a rich literature on artifacts in ontological analysis. This topic could also get into design issues.

[10:30] Mark Underwood1: A possible new "track," is also in the software engineering direction, is ontology support for software test, reliability engineering, recovery, resilience and forensics. (List uncomfortably, intentionally broad). Testing completeness could be enhanced by systematic exploitation of domain ontology models, vs. seat-of-pants testing frameworks

[10:30] Leo Obrst: I agree with Mike Dean that if we could get out front on the IoT topic emphasizing ontologies, that could be very good.

[10:30] Ken Baclawski: The various topics such as IoT and nstic.gov could be the basis for examples of how ontologies could be applied in real-world problems. This would serve both as a way of being more focused by having relatively specific tracks while also contributing to the "textbook" idea.

[10:32] Ram D. Sriram1: If anyone is interested, I can send my slide set on Smart Networked Systems and Societies

[10:32] Mark Underwood1: @Ram - sure - mark.underwood@kryptonbrothers.com

[10:34] Mark Underwood1: Is the goal to go wide, or go narrow for the summit?

[10:35] Joel Bender: @Ram: yes please, jjb5@cornell.edu

[10:36] Leo Obrst: Yes, Ram, would like to see this.

[10:38] Mark Underwood1: Provenance (or Veracity) for the Big Data V

[10:40] Leo Obrst: @TerryLongstreth: yes, and with 3D printing, we will be creating more "things", and the information/physical distinction begins to break down.

[10:40] Michael Grüninger: There seem to be four possible topics that have emerged from the discussion so far: 1) Applied Ontology Body of Knowledge; 2) Internet of Things; 3) Sociotechnical Aspects of Applied Ontology; 4) Artefacts

[10:41] Terry Longstreth: @Leo- extend artifacts discussion to include those which have no intrinsic physical manifestation (i.e. digital objects)

[10:41] Leo Obrst: Also, one can consider the IoT really does expand the network stack upward, perhaps at the top being the ontological level?

[10:42] Mark Underwood1: @Leo Hard to the avoid the SDN topic then

[10:43] Michael Grüninger: Decision: Identify one or two champions for each of the above potential topics. We will have a follow-up meeting sometime in November to select the topic

[10:44] Michael Grüninger: so that the Org Committee has time to prepare for the Pre-launch in december

[10:44] Michael Grüninger: 1) Applied Ontology Body of Knowledge. Champions: Matthew West and KenBaclwaski

[10:45] Michael Grüninger: 2) Internet of Things. Champions: Mark Underwood and Ram D. Sriram and Joel Bender

[10:47] Michael Grüninger: 3) Sociotechnical Aspects of Applied Ontology. Champions: Terry Longstreth, Christopher Spottiswoode

[10:48] Joel Bender: On campus I have slightly less than a million things (building automation sensors, values, etc) with some naming convention and no ontology - so I'm kind of desperate to make an IoT ontology happen

[10:48] Michael Grüninger: 4) Artefacts. Champions: Leo Obrst

[10:50] Leo Obrst: I'm also interested in topic (1)and (2).

[10:51] Mike Bennett: Pre-launch event should probably be Dec 4th since there is an OMG meeting on 11th which some might be attending.

[10:53] Michael Grüninger: Next meeting on November 6, 2014. Objective of this meeting will be the final selection of the Ontology Summit 2015 theme

[10:53] Michael Grüninger: We will also identify the Organizing Committee at that time

[10:55] Adjourned

Audio Recording

http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OntologySummit2015/2014-10-09_OntologySummit2015_theme-brainstorm/wip/Audio_Recording_20141009a_raw.mp3

Additional Resources


For the record ...

How To Join (while the session is in progress)