vera meister (jonas jetschni): development of a semantic it service catalog in a german public...

Semantic IT Service Catalog in a German Public OrganizationDesign, Development, and Implementation

SEMANTiCs 2015, Vienna

Vera G. Meister, Jonas Jetschni

SEMANTiCs 2015 · Vienna · 16.09.2015 Page05/03/2023

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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


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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



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IT Management Structure


NOG

Administration

Lab Services

DTE

Lab Services

DCS

Lab Services

DBMHead Head

Library

Data Center

ChancellorPresident

CIMC

Center X

before 2014

now

Project Y

CIO Panel


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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 baseMeister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization


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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. PrototypingMeister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization


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Use Cases and Requirements


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.


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Evaluation of Implementation Types


Doc Document-based IT service catalogCMS IT service catalog based on a Content Mgt. SystemSem Semantic IT service catalog

Sem

DMS

Doc

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

RelationenabbildProzesssupportInformationsversorgung

Outline of RelationsProcess SupportInformation Supply

CMS


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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


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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


Requirements1) Structured coding2) Syntax checking3) Support of standards4) Ontology „mashup“5) Easy reengineering6) Structure and Graph

visualization7) Support of cooperative work


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itcat Schema Graph


Agent

Service

schema:agent

Document

Organi-zation

Person

Role

Service Categor

y

Catalog Categor

y

Subject Categor

y

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 GUILogin | FAQ | Search | Main | Editor

Application LayerPHP | REST HTTP

Basic Ontologies

schema | skos | itcat | …

Triple StoreFuseki | Jena

SPARQL Endpoint

Document ServerBP 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 05/03/2023


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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 2Head of Department/Center 5Project Manager 2Professors 5Academic Staff 2Administrative Staff 3Students 6

• personal discussions, observation of system’s usage; ongoing interpretation


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7

2

Wow!Well …Oh no?

Interesting …

Navigation is totally

confusing!

That‘s exatly,

what we are

missing!


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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 supportMeister, Jetschni · Semantic IT Catalog in a German Public Organization


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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


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Next Steps


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


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Demo: IT Service Catalog Prototype


Fachbereich Wirtschaft

Thank You for Listening

Vera G. Meister Jonas [email protected] [email protected]

vera meister (jonas jetschni): development of a semantic it service catalog in a german public...

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