Literature & Publications |The Semantic Puzzle

Knowledge Management and the Semantic Web

July 28, 2009 by Helmut Nagy, Category: Knowledge Management, Literature & Publications

That’s the title of my diploma thesis and first of all, thanks to SWC for the possibility to say some words about it. My interest in knowledge management reaches back some time now and I decided to make it the subject of my diploma thesis in my first attempt to write one back in 2001. The semantic web “came to me” in the last one or two years and the TRIPLE-I conference last year was somehow the trigger for me to connect the two topics.

My basic idea was very simple. When you read about the Semantic Web you are confronted right away with connections to creating knowledge and knowledge management. But in my understanding the Semantic Web is a technical thing and knowledge management is primarily a cultural and organisational thing. So the research questions for my thesis where:

What relevance do knowledge management and semantic technologies have in the daily work of people working in knowledge intensive domains?

Which possibilities lie in the adoption of knowledge management and semantic technologies?

Are semantic technologies already fit for practical use?

The basis of the empirical part of my thesis are group discussions held in different organisations. As a result I developed starting points for an understanding of the topics “Knowledge Management” and “Semantic Web” and their relevance in organisations. The empirical results, in short, provide the following answers to the research questions:

The “theoretical relevance” of both topics is high, the “practical relevance” on the other hand is rather low. Neither do structured concepts for knowledge management exist in the studied organisations, nor are there attempts at using semantic technologies
Most of the participants have not heard of the “semantic web” prior to the discussions. After having been introduced to the topic, the relevance of the semantic web and of semantic technologies is rated high
Possibilities are seen in a better management of information or knowledge in organisations and, especially for semantic technologies, in the improvement of search functionality’s and search results
Semantic technologies are not yet seen as fit for practical use
The connection between knowledge management and semantic web is taken as a fact without giving any justification for it.

In my conclusion I tried to match my results with the results of the Semantic Web Barometer 2009 and it was very interesting for me, that there were several similarities. I also found that talking to the people that have to work with technologies that are developed for them can be quite interesting and that group discussion are a great way to do that.

I wrote most parts of my diploma thesis in a wiki (and the rest is available as PDF) so you can find it on my wiki.

Your comments and annotations are very welcome!

Thanks for reading as far as this, Helmut

ISWC Workshop on Semantic Web Applications in Scientific Discourse (w3.org)
Leo Sauermann – gnowsis: Weak memory remedy @ webinale (tiburon-tv.com)

Now available: Results of the Semantic Web Awareness Barometer 2009

April 17, 2009 by Tassilo Pellegrini, Category: Literature & Publications

Between November 1, 2008 and January 22, 2009 the Semantic Web Company in cooperation with the Know Center Graz and the Corporate Semantic Web Working Group of Freie Universität Berlin conducted an online survey on experiences with and expectations towards Semantic Web technologies. The data analysed in this survey was primarily collected among Semantic Web specialists from science and industry.

We recommend to read this report as a snapshot on the development of the Semantic Web. It shall give the reader a brief overview over current trends and possible future topics. It shall provide orientation at a broader scale that helps the reader to compare his/her personal notion of the current development with the aggregated views from other specialists. Beside that, the results of this survey can be used to formulate further hypotheses for testing under more advanced empirical circumstances.

For better orientation we grouped the respondents by their approach to the topic into Research-oriented and Application-oriented. While the first category consists mainly of stakeholders from the academic or industrial scientific sector, the latter category consists of interested users and decision makers with an industrial background.

The results in brief:

Social Software

There exist slightly differing application and usage patterns of Social Software between the two groups, but the general trend says: Wikis are king! Social Bookmarking stays behind.
There exists broad consent about the benefits of Social Software. Both groups say that quick access to information and knowledge is the biggest benefit generated by Social Software, followed by social networking functionalities and ubiquitous access to documents and data.
There are differring notions about the barriers to Social Software, but consent exists that the amount of time necessary to use and maintain Social Software applications is the biggest obstacle.

Semantic Web

The overall Semantic Web familiarity is already rather high.
Most participants, especially from the research-domain, have dealt with the topic for more than three years. Application-oriented users catch up.
When it comes to Semantic Web education self-study is the general pattern among both groups.
More than 80 percent of application-oriented and research-oriented participants think that Semantic Web technologies are at least relevant to be used for corporate and business purposes.
Search is the killer app! Integration costs & data control might be important aspects.
There exist differring notions about the importance of certain barriers to the Semantic Web. Application-oriented participants believe that the organisational culture, the complexity of the technology, a general lack of experts and a lack of success stories are the biggest obstacles to the application of Semantic Web technologies. On the contrary research-oriented participants believe that the lack of success stories, a gerenal lack of experts, a lack in quality of available software and the problem to quantify the benefits will hinder the broad adoption.
While just a small minority believes that there won’t be any changes at all, most participatns expect changes in regard to competencies of the knowledge worker and new forms of collaboration either between or within companies.
The expected time to market is 2 – 5 years.
The readiness to implement Semantic Web technologies is relatively high among both groups although the application-oriented participants seem to be a bit more reluctant.
The last question of the survey reveals that expectations towards the Semantic Web are very high! Especially the application-oriented participants believe that the relevance of Semantic Web technologies in times of crisis is growing.

Do your own analysis – Download the report and the data set!

Due to the small sample size there has been no hard statistical testing on the data. For further testing interested parties can download the report and data set from right below or www.know-center.at and www.corporate-semantic-web.de. The data set is provided in SPSSformat and available under a CC license.

Report: SemWeb Awareness Barometer 2009

Data Set: SemWeb Awareness Barometer 2009

Springer´s new semantic search engine

March 4, 2009 by Andreas Blumauer, Category: Literature & Publications, Search Engines

Just recently Springer came up with AuthorMapper, a great new tool to explore the scientific world, see trends on a map and find related articles etc.:

AuthorMapper, an online tool for visualizing scientific research, enables document discovery based on author locations and geographic maps. Integrating content and mapping technology, AuthorMapper provides an easy-to-use, dynamic interface that allows you to:

Explore patterns in scientific research

Identify new and historic literature trends

Discover wider relationships

Locate other experts in your field

Let´s have a look on the global map of the “Semantic Web World” (at least the scientific part of it):

	if not otherwise specified

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