1 Creation of National Directory of Environmental Organizations & Projects Paul Shabajee (University of Bristol) Steve Cayzer (HP Labs, Bristol)

2 SWAD-E & SWARA Projects SWAD-Europe (Semantic Web Advanced Development ) “… a European funded project aiming to ensure that the critical technology components required for the widespread Semantic Web adoption are readily accessible to European industry, consumers and developers” Series of smaller projects inc. Semantic Community Portal Demonstrator. SWARA (Semantic Web And Repurposing Applications) Parallel work Semantic Community Portal Demonstrator work package of the SWAD-E project SWARA Funded by HP Labs in Bristol based at ILRT, University of Bristol Background research inc. using biodiversity/wildlife information as a case study of an information ‘domain’ Identified a number of issues and potential applications for the Semantic Community Portal Demonstrator – most promising is the Environmental Organisation/Project Directory

3 Semantic Web W3C lead development… Inter-operation/Integration of Web-based data Machine readable data inc. ‘semantics’ E.g. all info required for holiday bookings is available on the Web (transport, hotels, car hire, excursions…) but a human has to sit and pull it all together  if the data is interoperable and machine readable (in a common format) ‘agents’ can pull information together… Identification of: objects, people, organisations, locations etc… properties of them e.g. age, name, address… Relationships between them e.g. x has_age y In the context of this project Provides a means to automatically aggregate data and related it to other data (sources of information)

4 Environmental Directory – Motivation and Issues No comprehensive current directory in the UK Potentially of significant value to many different groups Issues Maintenance & Sustainability Completeness Collation of ALL orgs is difficult e.g. questionnaire response Only organisations not projects Up-to-date-ness User Interfaces & Categorisation of information Different foci by diff communities Visualisation e.g. geographical, related ‘topics’, relationships between orgs etc… Interoperation and reuse of data with/by other systems No ability to add ‘Missing data’ e.g. relationships between organisations/projects… Validation …

5 Needs & Application Areas For ‘Raw’ Organisational Data General public seeking information about wildlife/biodiversity or environmental topics, locations, species etc. Educationalists and Students teaching and learning in these and related areas who wish to find teaching and learning materials, resources and information. Academic researches seeking specialist organisations, contacts or partners as part of their research activities… Media or other non-specialist researchers seeking specialist resources or advice on particular areas or species etc. The organisations themselves wishing to find or make contact with related organisations or find specialist information. Businesses seeking environmental advice and services e.g. as part of environmental impact assessment processes

6 Needs & Application Areas Augmentation & Integration With ‘Raw’ Organisational Data Adding or Joining Specialist Information to the raw data – Product & Services Volunteering Opportunities Data Sets Held Publications Specialist Classifications specific to a community or type of organisation, e.g. curriculum links, academic or conservation specialist terms e.g. species or habitat conservation, … Events e.g. talks, conferences, events… Applied to larger contexts Automatic listings of organisations, events for tourism and other wide- ranging information resources. Allows

7 High Level Requirements - Illustrative Up to date and easily maintainable data Low barrier to data entry Provides a system that is robust and sustainable Provide visualisation tools Effective UI Provides a simple to use but extensible classification schema Enable other services and data to interoperate Validation Mechanisms…

8 Data Elements (Illustrative) Core (inc. minimal mandatory set) Primary Name of Organisation/Project Alternate Name(s) of Organisation/Project Acronym URL of Logo for Organisation/Project Primary Postal Address Primary Telephone Number Short & Long Descriptions Various Classifications e.g. type or organisation, types of activity, geographic range, … … Potential Extended Relationships with other projects… Products/Services e.g. publications, consultancy etc… Volunteering Opportunities Membership Opportunities, benefits, etc..

9 Data Vocabularies & Ontologies Ideally based existing metadata standards (element sets) and vocabularies, thesauri, etc. to ensure external interoperability. But need to allow for community enhancement, customisation so use mappings to core/high level ‘ontologies’. Could use any external (e.g. specialist) vocabularies, thesauri, taxonomies, ontologies… e.g. species, habitat, datasets, etc…

10 Data Vocabularies & Ontologies

11 Basic Architecture – Creation & Maintenance

12 Basic Architecture - Publishing

13 Basic Architecture - Publishing

14 Basic Architecture - RDF

15 Extending the Basic Architecture & Functionality 3 rd Party Data Semantic Web architectures designed to allow re-use of data by 3rd parties e.g. set up specialist directory with supplementary data or competing service provision e.g. publications, services, data sets held, specialist classification (e.g. species related), … Aggregation client software Allow aggregation of 3rd party sources e.g. competing or complementary information services. Validation Basic validation – RDF file is stored on the server talking about itself. More advanced based on Web of Trust and/or digitial signatures/certificates. Probably based on a distributed approach (e.g. key organisations within a sector validate data) Restrict access to ‘sensitive’ data (e.g. address  spam)

16 Reuse and Enrichment

17 Extending the Basic Architecture – Adding New Types of Data

18 Extending the Basic Architecture & Functionality More sustainable and robust Easy to maintain for both directory publishers and organisations Easy to implement and at low (financial & technical) cost Flexible and able to support the creation of customizable user interfaces. Based on open (non-proprietary) technologies Extensible. It will be easy to change existing and add new types of data Able to allow the re-use of information that already exists Able to allow easy (potentially automatic) integration of diverse complementary types and sources of information.

19 Bootstrapping the Process – example of possible approach Identify Key partners Small number of lead organisations help develop next stage of requirements, controlled vocabularies/ontologies etc… Develop general purpose architecture and customise to specific requirements Seed basic data for demonstration system Evaluate pilot system inc. examples of 3 rd party augmentation Open system up for others to use and integrate …