The European Parliament and the Semantic Web - Some considerations Peter Brown Head of Information Resources Management European Parliament 01D-GRI_GEN(2003)0014 Presentation to W3C Semantic Tour Brussels, 24 June 2003

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Overview What do we do? Our objectives in Semantic Web work Information Architecture Governance Our initial work Our initial findings Comments, questions Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it Samuel Johnson, 1775

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, What do we do? European Union (EU) international organisation with own legislative, executive and judicial authority derived from principle of pooled sovereignty aquis communautaire: harmonisation of legislation and policies EU

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, What do we do? (2) European Parliament (EP) directly elected institution of the European Union: with 626 Members from 15 Member States 162 Observers from 10 application countries working in 20 languages in 3 places of work in 3 different countries 3500 staff 1500 Members staff 500 political group staff EU > EP

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, What do we do? (3) Directorate for Information Technologies (DIT) IS design, development and deployment IS & telecoms infrastructure User support PMO Information Resources Management EU > EP > DIT

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, What do we do? (4) Information Resources Management Policy Frameworks Norms, standards and guidelines proposed Interoperability Forum RFC and RFP processes Early and effective iteration External Cooperation with other EU institutions with national Parliaments and administrations with organisations, consortia, etc... EU > EP > DIT > IRM

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Semantic Web - Our Objectives Information and service access No wrong door Security and quality of information Supplement search and menu-driven information access Preserve and extend multilingualism Persistence Logical rather than physical object identification

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Information Architecture Importance of a common vocabulary Information territories who defines it? Scope and boundaries Dont worry about content…yet What do we mean by mean? Meanings start with everyday terminology associations, processes, actors, collections... but…who decides what ?...

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Governance Programmers define program variables Programmers are still defining XML tags Are your IT people defining your business semantics? Need for a management lead Need for communities of interest Safety in numbers Network effect ParlML MIReG

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Our initial work Information architecture You should be more proud of the floor plan of the remodelled house than of the wallpaper (Melissa Cook) Our approach - part of general review and creation of architecture guidelines Assets management Treat your vocabulary, ontology, assertions and trusted authorities as business assets

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Our initial work (2) Priorities Key definitions What is a document? How do you identify it? How do you describe it ? How do you address it ? Build a Vocabulary use of Core Components Model develop ontology Policy support establish authority

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Our initial work (3) Demonstrator Build an ontology Protégé Ontology Editor (Stanford University) Validate ontology with business users not IT people Investigate standards RDF (bottom up) Topic Maps (top down) Establish user and functional requirements Choice of standard and trial software Iterate

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Our initial findings RDF more easily understandable but less well supported by market and tools Topic Maps more abstract and complex but better supported and more powerful Neither provides everything at present Concentrate on business layer for now Further work needed on Identifiers and resource discovery Implementation Road Map needed

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Personal plug...

24 June, 2003© European Parliament, Comments, questions