1. Standards-Based Knowledge Systems using NewsML and Topic Maps Presented by Daniel Rivers-MooreDaniel Rivers-Moore Director of New Technologies, RivComRivCom to Knowledge Technologies 2001 Austin, Texas, 6 March 2001

2. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. Introduction The delivery of world news is about to be transformed by a new XML specification NewsML is the new standard for multimedia news from the IPTC NewsML has been designed for compatibility with the emerging XML Topic Maps specification This talk will look at –What is NewsML? –What are Topic Maps? –How the two work together –A vision of the future

3. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. Features of NewsML Supports the representation of –electronic news items –collections of such items –the relationships between them –their associated metadata Allows multiple representations of the same information Handles arbitrary mixtures of media types, formats, languages and encodings Supports all stages of the news lifecycle Allows the evolution of news items over time Allows the provenance of both metadata and news content to be asserted

4. NewsML Structure

12. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. NewsML is Extensible Is extensible through controlled vocabularies –A NewsML TopicSet is a set of Topics –Each topic has a unique ID, and may have any number of formal names and descriptions –Each formal name is related to a specific naming scheme (controlled vocabulary)

13. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. A TopicSet of Roles Main Principal component.... Thumbnail A news-component substitute, smaller than the original, used for convenience....

14. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. TopicSets for Content A topic can be anything we are interested in We have seen a set of topics for permitted roles (an aspect of metadata) They can also be used to identify important aspects of news content Examples may be –Companies –People –Places –Events –…–…

15. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. A TopicSet of Companies... MSFT Microsoft Corporation MSTR MicroStrategy Incorporated MTST Microtest, Inc....

16. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. Equivalence between Topics A Topic can have more than one FormalName, in different schemes An existing ToipicSet can be imported (by reference) Topics that have the same name in the same scheme are merged Thus I can declare equivalence of my topic to an item in a standard ontology United Kingdom UK

17. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. Relationships between Topics Topics can have Properties, which may be other topics... London The capital of the United Kingdom....

18. Descriptive Metadata

19. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. Topic Occurrences Descriptive metadata can state which topics occur within any content item (TopicOccurrences)

20. Topic Maps Topic Navigation Maps –An ISO standard (ISO 13250) January 2000 –SGML syntax –Based on HyTime XML Topic Maps –A conceptual model and XML syntax –Developed by TopicMaps.org (an independent consoretium hosted by IDEAlliance) –Working in close cooperation with the ISO WG –The Conceptual Model should provide a unification between the ISO and XTM syntaxes STOP PRESS –XTM version 1.0 approved 19 February 2001 –http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/http://www.topicmaps.org/xtm/1.0/

21. Topic Maps Topic/Subject –Anything about which something can be said (subject) –An information object that stands for that subject (topic) Name –Each topic can have any number of names, appropriate to different contexts Subject Descriptor –A resource that clearly specifies what the subject is Occurrence –Any resource that is relevant to the topic/subject Association –A specific relationship between topics/subject

22. The purpose of Topic Maps Management of large pools of disparate interconnected information objects © copyright STEP UK Limited 1999

23. Topic Maps © copyright STEP UK Limited 1999

24. Topic Maps © copyright STEP UK Limited 1999

25. Why Topic Maps? Maybe we can make sense of the web... … and generate knowledge out of data © copyright STEP UK Limited 1999

26. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. The XTM Conceptual Model The XTM Specification includes a Conceptual Model (expressed in UML) The conceptual model is syntax-independent The XTM serialization syntax is defined by the standard, but not required NewsML TopicSets provide an an alternative syntax for sets of XTM topics A parsed NewsML document can yield a conforming topic map that is processable by an XTM processor

27. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. The Semantic Web XTM allows the topics themselves to be accessed and navigated This can be the foundation for the ‘Semantic Web’ (the Web of meaning) The W3C sees RDF (Resource Descrition Framework) as central to the Semantic Web But the Semantic Web Activity Statement states: “The ISO Topic Map (XTM) community has been finding increasing synergy with the RDF data model. We are hopeful that the markup language background of the Topic Map community will suggest syntax alternatives for graph-oriented data that can be considered for incorporation into RDF and that RDF will be seen to be usable for Topic Map data as well.”

28. Why Topic Maps? Maybe we can make sense of the web... … and generate knowledge out of data © copyright STEP UK Limited 1999

29. Why Topic Maps? © copyright STEP UK Limited 1999

30. Why NewsML? Maybe we can make sense of the news... … and generate understanding out of facts

31. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. NewsML is an Information Carrier A NewsML document can have ContentItems that carry (or reference) information in any format These may be media objects –Images –Video –Audio Or they may be XML structured information –ebXML (business processes or transactional) –XBRL (business reports) –IRMDL/RIXML (investment research/analysis) –etc.

32. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. XTM is a Knowledge Structure As information passes through its life, it will be carried and presented in multiple forms depending on context and purpose Something common is needed to maintain object identity through its lifecycle XTM can provide a conceptual framework for this Each object is a Topic, and each way in which it occurs is an Occurrence of that Topic.

33. © 2000, RivCom - All rights reserved. A Vision of the Future Enterprises model and run their businesses using ebXML They report their results using XBRL The media release them to the world using NewsML The analysts add their insights to them using IRML or RIXML (investment research markup language) These insights are fed back into business strategies, and the cycle begins again Topics are the unifying reference point that runs through all these stages of the information cycle

34. Thank you for your attention

35. Links and Contact Information NewsML http://www.iptc.org/NewsML http://www.iptc.org/NewsML XML Topic Maps http://www.TopicMaps.org http://www.TopicMaps.org XBRL http://www.xbrl.org http://www.xbrl.org W3C Semantic Web http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Activity Daniel Rivers-Moore: daniel.rivers-moore@rivcom.comdaniel.rivers-moore@rivcom.com Tel: +44(0)1793 792004