TMRA 2006 - Leveraging the Semantics

Tutorials@TMRA 2006

Tutorials@TMRA provides a full day (October 10) of applied knowledge from the Topic Mapping Space. We invite you to participate in the practical tutorials. The schedule of tutorials@TMRA 2006 is provided by following this link.

Please be aware that tutorials@TMRA requires additional registration.

Full day tutorial

Instructor: Kevin Trainor (Ligent, USA)
Practical Ontology Design for Topic Maps (full day)

Abstract: Designing the ontology is an integral and important aspect of every Topic Maps application. It might sound difficult, but in fact it's not. Learn exactly what an ontology is and how to go about developing one. This day takes the form of an interactive workshop that provides an overview of all the issues to be considered when modeling topic maps. Practical examples are used to apply the methodologies and to help you make modeling decisions based on your requirements. By the conclusion of the workshop, each participant will have had the opportunity to contribute to the design of a realistic ontology and to create a topic map based on that ontology design. The hands-on topic map creation portion of the workshop will be done using Ontopia's new topic map editor, Ontopoly.
Participants will need a laptop computer for the hands-on portion of the workshop. Before arriving at the tutorial, participants should install the Ontopia OKS-Samplers on their machines. The OKS-Samplers may be downloaded from this link. To install OKS Samplers, you must have version 1.4 or newer of the Java JDK. The Java JDK may be downloaded from this link. Should participants have any difficulty installing the OKS-Samplers, help is available by emailing support@ontopia.net.

Audience: This tutorial is suitable for all levels. It is particularly well suited for information architects, CIOs, project managers, system designers and system developers.

Morning Session

Instructor: Lars Marius Garshol (Ontopia, NO)
TMDM + XTM 2.0 (half day)
Abstract: This tutorial teaches the Topic Maps Data Model (TMDM), which is the part of the ISO standard that formally defines the Topic Maps concepts and model. Understanding the TMDM in detail is in other words the same as understanding Topic Maps in detail. The tutorial covers the semantics of the various constructs in the model, such as topics, associations, occurences, association roles, scope, subject locators, the constraints on the model, and operations such as merging.
The tutorial also teaches the XTM 2.0 syntax, which is the new, updated XML syntax for Topic Maps, currently undergoing final ballot in ISO. After it passes ballot XTM 2.0 will be the new standard XML syntax for Topic Maps. The tutorial teaches the workings of XTM 2.0 and how it maps to TMDM.

Audience: Those interested in gaining a precise understanding of the details of the Topic Maps standard and the XTM syntax. Also, anyone interested in the changes made in TMDM/XTM 2.0 since XTM 1.0. Basic knowledge of Topic Maps is expected.

Instructor: Graham Moore (NetworkedPlanet, UK)
TMCore Topic Map Web Service (half day)
Abstract: TMWS (Topic Map Web Service) is the web service interface of TMCore07, a powerful web service API for connecting Topic Maps applications into a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The tutorial presents uses key issues in developing enterprise topic map solutions as a basis for describing the features, capabilities and usage of TMWS.

Audience: System Architects and Developers wanting to understand how to use Topic Maps in web service based applications.

Instructor: Alexander Sigel (Semantic Knowledge Services, DE)
Knowledge Organization with Topic Maps - Revisited (half day)
The slides are available here.

Abstract: This introductory tutorial will review approaches on how Knowledge Organization (KO) with Topic Maps (TMs) can aid organizing information resources by subject, e.g. for subject-oriented portals. This includes inter alia:
- Identifying and organizing concepts and relations
- Representing concepts and types of semantic relations as lightweight ontologies or KOS (Knowledge Organization Systems)
- Indexing and classifying: Associating ontology entries via typed occurrences with information resources (assets)
- Rendering those ontologies with the associated information resources as needed, e.g. within portals talking dynamically to each other about subjects.
- Aggregating statements (assertions) about the same subject from different resources, and the potential of providing new (semantic) knowledge services and products on top.
Although some practical examples will be shown, the tutorial will rather address basic principles and their potential usefulness.
We will check advances made in the four years since the article "Topic Maps in Knowledge Organization" (Sigel, in: Park/Hunting (2002): XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web), also touching information integration and "Topic-Oriented Portals" (Sigel/Ahmed, in: Tatnall (2007, forthcoming): Encyclopaedia of Portal Technology and Applications).
Since the presenter will reserve time to respond to questions, participants are encouraged to send questions in advance to sigel@asigel.de.

Audience: Someone who is interested in learning about how Knowledge Organization with Topic Maps can aid organizing information resources by subject, e.g. for subject-oriented portals. Participants should have prior understanding of basic concepts of the Topic Maps paradigm, but acquaintance with the field of Knowledge Organization, or technical or advanced knowledge on Topic Maps is not needed.

Afternoon Session

Instructor: Dr. Michel Chapman (VLIB)
Creating a links catalogue using topic maps (half day)

Abstract: Using a simple hierarchical catalogue of links on a niche subject, this tutorial shows how to develop a topic map from the data. It extends the original catalogue by showing the ability of a topic map to have a far richer use of categories, richer cross linking, and use of language variants using custom associations and scoping. The use of Published Subject Indicators (PSIs) and the potential for querying the dataset are covered. Whilst emphasising the utility of internal searching and querying to actual users, the necessity to present static webpages capable of indexation by search engines to allow potential users to find the data is emphasised. the impact of PSIs on such an approach is discussed.

Audience: As set out this is a beginners tutorial, but the level can be adjusted, depending on the participants.

Instructor: Stian Lavik, Tommy W. Nordeng (Cerpus, NO)
Topicmaps in learning - Learning by building topicmaps in BrainBank (half day)

Abstract:The Topic Maps (ISO 13250) standard basic principles of topics, associations and occurrences naturally supports some learning and knowledge theory of how knowledge can be acquired and structured.
During this tutorial, we will demonstrate how topicmaps can be used in learning, by building knowledge maps where concepts (topics) and relations (associations) play the key role. This way of building topicmaps as a method of learning will be backed up by some learning theory.
All the tutorial participants will be able to use the web based learning tool BrainBank Learning to get a hands-on experience, as a practical case. We will also try how it is possible to build the knowledge maps remotely, by connecting a Moodle (as a Virtual Learning Environment) to BrainBank Learning. We will approach some chosen knowledge domain and build topicmaps (or knowledge maps) to learn about it.
All participants that want hands on experience need a laptop with Internet connection (WLAN Internet connection is provided by the conference), a web browser (with Suns JVM installed for use of applets, version 1.4.2 or newer). The browser must accept cookies and have javascript enabled.

Audience: People interested in learning and topicmaps. It is an advantage (but no requirement) that the participants know the basics of topicmaps (topics, associations, occurrences).

Instructor: Lars Marius Garshol (Ontopia, NO)
Practical TMRAPping (half day)
Abstract: TMRAP is the web service interface of the OKS (the Ontopia Knowledge Suite); a powerful web service API for connecting Topic Maps applications into a service-oriented architecture (SOA). TMRAP can also be used to integrate distributed applications with a central Topic Maps server, and to make Topic Maps available on platforms which do not have Topic Maps implementations. The tutorial shows how to use TMRAP in practice to build such applications.

Audience:Developers interested in using web services to build Topic Maps-based application.

TMRA 2006 is chaired by Lutz Maicher, Lars Marius Garshol and Alexander Sigel. Please see the program committee.

Author: Lutz Maicher. Last update: 20.09.2006

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