Schemas and Ontologies: Building a Semantic Infrastructure for the GRID and Digital Libraries Speakers Abstract & Bio

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Douglas Tudhope is Reader in the School of Computing and leads the Hypermedia Research Unit. Before joining the University of Glamorgan, he worked as a Programmer/Analyst, at the University of California, San Diego for the Hubble Space Telescope Project. His main research interests are in the intersecting areas of digital libraries, hypermedia and in the emerging semantic web/grid. He is currently directing the EPSRC funded FACET project in collaboration with the UK Science Museum. This project investigates the potential of faceted thesauri for both automatic and interactive retrieval systems. Other research interests include the application of interactionist social science perspectives to prototyping and HCI/Participatory Design. Since 1977, he has been Editor of the journal, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia. For more information and recent publications, see http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/staff/dstudhope/

Knowledge Organisations Systems

While Web search engines have made advances in recent years, the problems of keyword searching are well known. Significant differences in results stem from trivial variations in expression of the information need. Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS), such as classifications, gazetteers, lexical databases, taxonomies and thesauri, model the underlying semantic structure of a domain. Embodied as services, they facilitate resource discovery and retrieval. They act as semantic road maps and make possible a common orientation by indexers and future searchers (whether human or machine). A vast legacy of KOS, and indexed collections (digital and print) is available. Unlike ad-hoc internet classifications created by small groups without editorial process, major KOS have been through peer review and follow standards. They exist in a network of practice, training and mechanisms for evolution.

However, KOS cannot currently be utilised to their full potential in DL or the Semantic Grid. They were originally designed for human inspection rather than machine processing and their semantic structure is not explicit. As legacy systems, they may be inconsistently evolved from various sources. We now have the opportunity to formalise and enrich them, exploiting the infrastructure of Semantic Web/Grid languages and technologies. This presentation reviews current KOS-based research and initiatives. It aims to highlight possible shared or complementary areas of interest with eScience and Ontology-based work.