towards scientific collaboration in a semantic wiki

State of the Art Problem Statement SWiM Knowledge Representation Services Conclusion

Towards Scientific Collaboration in a Semantic WikiBridging the Gap between Web 2.0 and Semantic Web

Christoph Lange

Jacobs University Bremen(formerly International University Bremen)

June 7, 2007

Ch. Lange (Jacobs University Bremen) Towards Scientific Collaboration in a Semantic Wiki June 7, 2007 1

http://www.jacobs-university.de


Wikis for Science

Current scientific wikis:Wikipedia (partly)PlanetMath (domain-specific). . .

Easy to create and link knowledge items⇒ wikis also suitable for non-public researchprojects

Scientific services currently not available




Semantic Wikis

Conventional wikis do not understand the knowledge graph theycontainSemantic wikis address this problem:

usually: 1 page =̂ 1 real-world conceptpages and links typed with terms from ontologies

Semantic wikis are appropriate base system for community-authoredknowledge models:

support stepwise formalisation workflowoffer enhanced navigation and search

Examples: Semantic MediaWiki [KVV06], IkeWiki [Schaffert06], . . .




Semantic Services for Science

Foster collaboration in a scientific community – e. g.:suggesting topics of interest to learnersmanage dependencies during development

Both issues solved on the semantic web, but not in semantic wikisWiki extensions for learning exist [Reinhold06], but do not utiliseknowledge contained in the wiki pages!Why are semantic wikis not semantic enough?

Because they are not really built on ontologies!Ontologies are optional mostly; ontology support is too generic

⇒ model generic ontology of (scientific) domain knowledge, designservices on top of that abstraction layer




SWiM, a Semantic Wiki for Mathematics

SWiM prototype: IkeWiki [Schaffert06] + OMDoc [Kohlhase06]editing, presentation, navigation; partly ontology-based




Structural Semantic Markup

Structural semantic markup: common way to represent scientificknowledgeMarkup languages available for:

Mathematics: Content MathML, OpenMath, OMDoc, . . .Physics: PhysMLChemistry: CMLGeodata: GML, SensorML, MarineML, ESML, . . .From top to bottom (roughly): less structures, more data

For OMDoc, e. g., there are services for learning assistance, semanticsearch, publishing, theory management, proof verification, . . .Technology transfer in progress [HKS06]




Scientific Knowledge Representation

Three levels of scientific knowledge [Kohlhase06]:Objects symbols, numbers, equations, molecules, . . .

Statements axioms, hypotheses, measurement results, examples;relationships: “proves”, “defines”, “exemplifies”, . . .

Theories collections of interrelated statements, determine context:“What does the symbol h mean?”

Successfully applied to mathematics (OMDoc), transferred to physics[HKS06]




Bringing Ontologies into Play

Markup language for expressing scientific knowledge availableMake it semantic web aware – formalise it in an ontology!Partly done for OMDoc; further steps: extending, generalising

Theory

Concept

Statement

Symbol

Definition

vimports

contains-1 depends on

defined by

lives in

v

v

v




Where is the Knowledge in a Wiki?

Semantic wiki: One page =̂ one conceptSWiM: One page =̂ one statement or theory(small, reusable pages, but not too small)Semantic Web tools need more explicit representation of theknowledge (extract from markup!)

ExampleA wiki page:

<omdoc><proof id="pyth-proof"for="pythagoras">...

</proof></omdoc>

Extracted RDF triples (=̂ graph):

pyth-proof pythagoras

Proof Theorem

type typeproves

proves

<pyth-proof, rdf:type, omdoc:Proof><pyth-proof, omdoc:proves, pythagoras>

(omdoc:* → OMDoc document ontology)




Learning Assistance

Added value analysis [KM07] for the “coreproblem” of helping a scholar to understand atopic.setting: Course modules (=̂ theories) connectedby prerequisite links (=̂ theory imports)

1 show navigation bar with direct links fromcurrent topic to other topics, grouped by type

sacrifice: indirect prerequisites not accessibledirectly

2 explore direct and indirect prerequisites (viareasoning)

sacrifice: too many irrelevant links




Learning from the Community

New core problem: pre-select relevant prerequisite links!1 Do it the social way: record what other users clicked

sacrifice: What if my needs are different from others’?2 Give a better, personalised estimate!

Single-user context: determine user’s previous knowledge (user model)[M+06]Use the community power: find out to which sub-community the userbelongs

e. g. concerning communities of practice [Müller07]




Mission

Implement prototypes of these services and evaluate them in long-termcase studies.

Science Our group is working on the cross-domain integration ofscientific markup languagestest SWiM+ in a heterogeneous environment,particularly dependency management

Education General Computer Science course from fall 2007Convert and import lecture notesevaluate learning assistance




The Big Picture

SWiM+

1

¿∫

−∞

ze−12?2

d ?

1.----------------2.----------------

<xml> ...</xml>

ChangeManagement

Publishing

Search

LearningAssistance

pythagoraspartial-diff-eqnproton

Proof for …

Easy Editing

Note: many services are independent from a particular scientific domain!Ch. Lange (Jacobs University Bremen) Towards Scientific Collaboration in a Semantic Wiki June 7, 2007 14



Related Work

se(ma)2wi [Zinn06]: Semantic MediaWiki . . .. . . fed with OMDoc-formatted knowledge from ActiveMathe-learning environmentCategories and learning metadata are used . . .. . . but structural semantic got lostFormulae in presentational LATEX, untyped links




Managing Dependencies: Support the Community

Recall the use case: Stein’s theory R depends on Ton’s theory G. Tonmakes a change; Stein should be informed about that.

1 Tell Stein: a page your page depends on has been changed.benefit: better than “recent changes”sacrifice: Stein himself must figure out whether the change brokesomething

2 Find out whether Ton changed the semantics of G (just ask him)sacrifice: Ton has to classify his change.




Managing Dependencies

Previous sacrifices: users themselves must reasontoo much

1 Automatically compute “long-range effects” ofchanges

locutor [Müller06] can!can also do some required fixesIntegrate it into the backend!

<xml> ...</xml>



towards scientific collaboration in a semantic wiki

Technology

jacobs university

semantic wiki

semantic mediawiki

scientic collaboration

indirect prerequisites

knowledge

mathematics

ontologies