Semantic IT Service Catalog
in a German Public Organization
Design, Development, and Implementation
SEMANTiCs 2015, Vienna
Vera G. Meister, Jonas Jetschni
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Agenda
Initial Situation
Approach
IT Project
Success Criteria
Obstacles
Benefits
Next Steps
Demo
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
3
Initial Situation
IT Operations and IT Management
in our university
homegrown
heterogenious
primarily focused on technical aspects
rather reactive than proactive
similar situation in a majority of public organizations
lack of transparency and guidance for
users
IT staff
executives
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
4
IT Management Structure
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
NOG
Administration
Lab Services
DTE
Lab Services
DCS
Lab Services
DBM
Head Head
Library
Data Center
Chancellor President
CIMC
Center X
before 2014
now
Project Y
CIO Panel
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Service Orientation
As of now
• no service orientation
• no clear picture about IT services
• support at technical level is basically well organized, but under pressure
• user support follows the „Hey Joe“ principle
• necessity of broad technological know how at all organizational levels
• at the same time: redundant services to some extent
Decision of the CIO panel (January 2015)
• stepwise implementation of service orientation
• priority No 1: implementation of an IT service catalog
• provide at least a central information base
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Approach
1. Requirements Analysis
Collection of use cases, requirements, and competence questions
2. Subject and Field Research
IT service catalog implementations in German public organizations
Structure and general requirements on IT service catalogs
3. Evaluation of Implementation Types
Analytical Hierarchy Process based on core general requirements
4. Data Collection
Media analysis, inquiry, and observation
5. Prototyping
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
7
Use Cases and Requirements
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
want to have guidance on public IT services at university
e. g. as prospect students, as potential project partners
of the university etc.
need information about a specific IT service
e. g. about access conditions, service options, support
offerings, operational processes etc.
aim on central coordination and standardization of services
e. g. for efficient appointment of scarce resources, for
optimal support for IT management processes etc.
need reliable data about costs and expenses of IT services
e. g. for budget planning, for implementing an internal
transfer pricing system for shared IT services etc.
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Evaluation of Implementation Types
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
Doc Document-based IT service catalog
CMS IT service catalog based on a Content Mgt. System
Sem Semantic IT service catalog
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Sem
DMS
Doc
Relationenabbild
Prozesssupport
Informationsversorgung
Outline of Relations
Process Support
Information Supply
CMS
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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IT Project
1. Selection of Tools, Standards, and Frameworks
ontology editors, basic ontologies and vocabularies, code libraries
2. Ontology Engineering
as fare as possible based on standards, streamlined structure
3. System Design
simple prototyping with multiple options for extensions
4. Application Development
based on web technologies: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, PHP
5. Evaluation
based on personal discussions, inquiry schedule, and observation (N=25)
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Ontology Editors
Systems Tested
CMap Tools
Knowledge Builder
PoolParty
rdfEditor
Protégé
WebProtégé
OWLGrEd
None of the tools meets all requirements
Selection of a tool set: rdfEditor, Protégé, and WebProtégé
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
Requirements
1) Structured coding
2) Syntax checking
3) Support of standards
4) Ontology „mashup“
5) Easy reengineering
6) Structure and Graph visualization
7) Support of cooperative work
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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itcat Schema Graph
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
Agent
Service
schema:agent
Document
Organi-
zation
Person
Role
Service Category
Catalog Category
Subject Category
Life Cycle Stage
itcat:inCategory
IT Asset
Priority
Entity
Criticality
Qualitative
Value
itcat:hasStage
itcat:usableWith foaf:page
itcat:hasPriority
itcat:hasCriticality
schema:member
schema:employee
• Planning • Implementation • Operation • In Relief • Off
• Communication • Business Adm. • Information • Infrastructure • Library • Network • Teaching Platf. • Miscellaneous
• Business • Infrastructure • Operational • Public
schema:isRelatedTo
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
Based on Open Standards
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System Design and Development
Responsive GUI Login | FAQ | Search | Main | Editor
Application Layer PHP | REST HTTP
Basic Ontologies
schema | skos | itcat | …
Triple Store
Fuseki | Jena
SPARQL Endpoint
Document Server
BP Models Templates Information
Semantic Server
• OWL Processing
• Inferencing
• Crawling / Parsing
D2R Server / REST-API CMS
RDB Mapping
External RDB
Google MDL
sparqllib.php
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization 9/10/2015
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Evaluation Setting and Results
Evaluation setting
• Form with six non-polar questions about first impression, usability aspects,
and further wishes or requirements; period: August 2015
• 25 Evaluators:
Top Management 2
Head of Department/Center 5
Project Manager 2
Professors 5
Academic Staff 2
Administrative Staff 3
Students 6
• personal discussions, observation of system’s usage; ongoing interpretation
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
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7
2
Wow!
Well …
Oh no?
Interesting …
Navigation is
totally
confusing!
That‘s exatly,
what we are
missing!
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
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Success Criteria and Obstacles
Success Criteria
• Joint expertise of the core developers (subject + semantic technology)
• Time for growing
• Top management’s buy in
• Enthusiasm and doggedness
• Flexible technical support by administrative staff
Obstacles
• Shortage of human resources
• Blockers in the CIO panel
• Weak tool support for ontology merging
• Weak standard vocabulary support
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Benefits
Appreciated by Evaluators
Chancellor: Reports allow better control of the organization,
e. g. in terms of review of contracts with extern providers.
Professor + Case worker: It may be very helpful during onboarding.
Head of Lab Services: We could implement our ticket system for all users.
Controler: We could check the involvement of staff into IT services and
allocate costs according to the cost-by-cause principle.
Student: It‘s nice to have all services for students in one place.
Intended by CIO Panel
More streamlined IT service supply,
Data basis for IT-related financial and organizational decisions,
Central information point and access point for service support.
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Next Steps
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
Content development
Functional enhancement
Faceted search and filtering
Visualization of relations between services
Login and target-group-specific presentation
Semantic server with more functionality and performance
Ontology enhancement/upgrading
Connection to other systems (monitoring, CMS, DMS)
Implementation of REST API
Further deployment in the federal state Brandenburg
SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page
9/10/2015
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Demo: IT Service Catalog Prototype
Meister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization
Fachbereich Wirtschaft
Thank You for Listening
Vera G. Meister Jonas Jetschni