What´s obvious for most of the Semantic Web evangelists, isn´t clear for at least 75% of all exhibitors (and their clients) at DMS Expo. For these people who are dealing with core systems of today´s enterprise stacks it´s not quite clear that documents could be a valuable resource for enterprise knowledge management. They still focus rather on the basic idea that documents have to be revision-proof, they should be long-term archived and should be put into a safe. That´s quite the opposite of how content is organised in a (Corporate) Semantic Web. In such an environment each little piece of information at least has the potential to get linked with another piece of information.

Open World Assumption is not only about the way we put ontologies in place.

It is also about the basic assumption that people intend to get their content published and linked in a way that this creates an extra value for their colleagues and their organisations.

Documents are containers, and containers tend to be put into containers which are even bigger. In a world where documents are the atomic elements to get information organised the question always is: What should be in there?

On the Semantic Web information is no longer locked inside documents, same with wikis: The idea is to organise every little piece of information in a way that it can improve constantly because it´s out on the (corporate) web. Part of this evolution are mechanisms which help to get pieces linked in a meaningful way. On the Social Semantic Web this job is partly automatically executed and partly done by human beings. In this world which is based on the assumption that people would like to have their information out there on the stage the question always is: How can this piece of information get linked to other pieces in a meaningful way? Which metadata should be put on top?

It´s the people who make the difference, and for many of them there is still no “business use case” based on the “Open World Assumption”.

Here is my proposal: Appreciating each one´s work as a valuable resource for the whole organisation!

And I can hear the question already: Great, but how can I put this into my Excel?

In order to allow for a high level of interaction, the attendance is limited to ten participants and ample time for questions and discussion with our experts is designated. Each webinar works as a stand-alone module, so you can pick and choose some of them or book the whole series of 6 webinars.

We’ll kick off with a session about Semantic Wikis on Thursday 22nd of October. A German language version will be held at 9 a.m., alternatively you can atted an English version at 6 p.m. CET.

Each Thursday we cover a different topic such as Semantic Search, Corporate Thesaurus Management, Text Mining on the Corporate Semantic Web, Linking Open Data and Semantic Advertising.

In order to participate you only need broadband access to the internet, Windows or a Mac and a fairly up-to-date browser. For detailed system requirement see the webinar overview.

We hope to talk to you in one or more of these sessions!

Markus Luczak-Rösch and his team from FU Berlin have published loomp, a WYSIWYG annotation tool especially designed for inhouse use. loomp is aiming at the Corporate Semantic Web market, providing a semantic application with low entry barriers and high usability designed for non-techies.

When asked about the concrete application area Markus says:

We have found various use cases especially in knowledge and content intense domains. The most interesting one is the journalists use case. Consider journalists which research and write articles and editors which revise and publish the work of journalists.

Journalists research specific topics on demand and access various information sources for this purpose, e.g. websites, books, related articles, and human informants. Only few journalists use digital devices for this task and even fewer apply information management systems. To transfer the finished article to the responsible editor at the publishing house the people use free text documents and email communication. Finally, an editor revises and releases the articles for his department. loomp can help journalists to manage their notes, interview logs, references, addresses, etc. loomp helps to link an article to its information sources.

Read the full interview here.