Site Name

MDA Standards for Ontology Development

Half-day (3 hours) tutorial

International Conference on Web Engineering (ICWE2004)

Dragan Gašević, Vladan Devedžić, Dragan Djurić
FON – School of Business Administration, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro
dgasevic@acm.org, devedzic@galeb.etf.bg.ac.yu, dragandj@gmail.com
http://goodoldai.org.yu, http://www.e-nspire.com

Abstract

The Semantic Web is the main direction of the future Web development. Domain ontologies are the most important part of Semantic Web applications. Artificial intelligence techniques are used for ontology creation, but those techniques are more related to research laboratories. Recently, there are many proposals to use software engineering techniques, especially the UML since it is the most accepted software engineering standard, in order to bring ontology development process closer to wider practitioners’ population. However, UML is based on object oriented paradigm, and has some limitation regarding ontology development. These limitations can be overcome using UML’s extensions (i.e. UML profiles), as well as other OMG’s standards (i.e. Model Driven Architecture– MDA). Currently, there is an initiative (i.e. RFP) within the OMG aiming to define a suitable language for modeling Semantic Web ontology languages in the context of the MDA.

The main goal of this tutorial is to present comprehensive introduction into MDA-based ontology development. It will provide an introduction to the field of the Semantic Web and ontology engineering, a description of several UML- and metamodeling- based solutions and tools for ontology development, an overview of the OMG’s MDA effort and related standards (Meta-Object Facility – MOF, UML, XML Metadata Interchange – XMI), a detail overview of the OMG’s proposal for Ontology Definition Metamodel (http://ontology.omg.org). Finally, we will describe our experiences in developing and employing an MDA-based infrastructure for ontology engineering we defined using the OMG’s recommendations.

Table of contents

• Semantic Web, ontologies, ontology structure, and ontology languages (XML, RDF(S), and OWL)
• UML-based solutions and tools for ontology development
  • UML vs. ontologies
  • Solutions based on: UML, UML extensions (i.e. UML Profiles), and ontology metamodels
  • Tools: DUET, ArgoUML, Rational Rose, XPetal, Protégé’s plug-ins, XSLT-based tools etc.
• Introduction into MDA: four-layer architecture, metamodeling, MOF, UML, and XMI
• OMG’s proposal for Ontology Definition Metamodel and current submissions
• The MDA-based infrastructure for ontology development:
  • Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM)
  • Ontology UML Profile (OUP) – a UML Profile that supports UML notation for ontology definition
  • Two-way mappings between OWL and ODM, and ODM and OUP
  • Extension for present UML tools for generation of ready-to-use OWL ontologies from the OUP

Target audience

The tutorial will be useful for researchers as well as for practitioners aiming to develop ontologies using well-known software engineering techniques and tools. The tutorial will assume that participants are acquainted with the basic concepts of UML, Semantic Web, ontologies, and XML.

Equipment

PC, projector, Windows, MS Power Point

Handouts

PowerPoint presentation (pdf)

Bibliography (a short list)

• [Atkinson & Kühne, 2002] Atkinson, C. and Kühne, T., Profiles in a strict metamodeling framework, Science of Computer Programming 44 (1) (2002) 5–22.
• [Atkinson & Kühne, 2003] Atkinson, C. and Kühne, T., Model-Driven Development: A Metamodeling Foundation, IEEE Software 20(5) (2003) 36-41.
• [Baclawski et al, 2002a] K Baclawski, M. K. Kokar, P. Kogut, L. Hart, J. E. Smith, J. Letkowski, and P. Emery, Extending the Unified Modeling Language for ontology development, International Journal Software and Systems Modeling (SoSyM) 1(2) (2002) 142-156.
• [Baclawski et al, 2002b] K Baclawski, M. M. Kokar, J. E. Smith, E. Wallace, J. Letkowski, M. R. Koethe, and P. Kogut , UOL: Unified Ontology Language, Assorted papers discussed at the DC Ontology SIG meeting, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?ontology/2002-11-02, 2002.
• [Bechhofer et al, 2004] S. Bechhofer et al, OWL Web Ontology Language Reference, W3C Recommendation, http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-owl-ref-20040210, 2004.
• [Chandrasekaran et al, 1999] B. Chandrasekaran, J. R. Josephson, and V. R. Benjamins, What Are Ontologies, and Why Do We Need Them?, IEEE Intelligent Systems 14 (1) (1999) 20-26.
• [Cranefield, 2001] S. Cranefield, Networked Knowledge Representation and Exchange using UML and RDF, Journal of Digital information 1 (8) (2001), http://jodi.ecs.soton.ac.uk
• [ Decker et al, 200 0] S. Decker, S. Melnik, F. van Harmelen, D. Fensel, M. Klein, J. Broekstra, M. Ederman, and I. Horrocks, The Semantic Web: The Roles of XML and RDF, IEEE Internet Computing 4 (5) (2000) 63-74.
• [Devedzic, 2002] V. Devedžić, Understanding Ontological Engineering, Communications of the ACM 45 (4) (2002) 136-144.
• [Djuric, 2004] D. Djuric, MDA-based Ontology Infrastructure, Computer Science and Information Systems 1 (1) (2004).
• [Djuric et al, 2005] D. Djuric, D. Gašević, and V. Devedžić, Ontology Modeling and MDA, Journal on Object Technology 4 (1) (2005) forthcoming.
• [Duddy, 2002] K. Duddy, UML2 Must Enable A Family of Languages, Communications of the ACM 45 (11) (2002) 73-75.
• [Falkovych et al, 2003] K. Falkovych, M., Sabou , and H. Stuckenschmidt, UML for the Semantic Web: Transformation-Based Approaches, in: B. Omelayenko, and M. Klein, ed., Knowledge Transformation for the Semantic Web, Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications, Vol. 95 (IOS Press, 2003) 92-106.
• [Gašević et al, 2003] D. Gašević, V. Devedžić , and V. Damjanović, Applying MDA Standards in Ontological Engineering, in: Proceedings of the 6 th International Conference on Information Technology, Bhubaneswar, India (2003) 193-196.
• [Gašević et al, 2004a] D. Gašević, D. Djuric , V. Devedžić , and V. Damjanović, Converting UML to OWL ontologies, in: Proceedings of the 13 th International WWW Conference, NY, USA (2004) forthcoming
• [Gašević et al, 2004b] D. Gašević, D. Djuric , V. Devedžić , and V. Damjanović , UML for Read-To-Use OWL Ontologies, in: Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference Intelligent Systems, Vrana, Bulgaria, 2004 (forthcoming).
• [Kogut et al, 2002] P. Kogut, S. Cranefield, L. Hart, M. Dutra, K. Baclawski, M. Kokar, and J. Smith, UML for Ontology Development, The Knowledge Engineering Review 17 (1) (2002) 61-64.
• [Kurtev & van den Berg, 2003] I. Kurtev and K. van den Berg, Model Driven Architecture based XML Processing, in: Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Document Engineering, Grenoble, France, 2003, 246-248.
• [Kurtev et al 2002] Kurtev, I., Bézivin, J., Aksit, M., Technological Spaces: An Initial Appraisal, in: Proceedings of the Confederated International Conferences CoopIS, DOA, and ODBASE 2002, Industrial track, Irvine, CA, USA, 2002.
• [Miller & Mukerji, 2003] J. Miller and J. Mukerji, (eds.), MDA Guide Version 1.0, OMG Document: omg/2003-05-01, http://www.omg.org/mda/mda_files/MDA_Guide_Version1-0.pdf, May 2003.
• [OMG MOF, 2002] Meta Object Facility (MOF) Specification v1.4, OMG Document formal/02-04-03, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/apps/doc?formal/02-04-03.pdf, April 2002.
• [OMG ODM, 2003] Ontology Definition Metamodel Request for Proposal, OMG Document: ad/2003-03-40, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?ad/2003-03-40, 2003.
• [OMG QVT, 2002] MOF 2.0 Query/Views/Transformations Request for Proposal, OMG Document ad/2002-04-10, http://www.omg.org/docs/ad/02-04-10.pdf, 2002.
• [OMG UML, 2003] Unified Modeling Language Specification v1.5, OMG Document formal/03-03-01, http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/apps/doc?formal/03-03-01.zip, March 2003.
• [OMG XMI, 2002] OMG XMI Specification, v1.2, OMG Document formal/02-01-01,http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?formal/2002-01-01, 2002.
• [Seidewitz, 2003] E. Seidewitz, What Models Mean, IEEE Software 20 (5) (2003) 26-32.
• [Selic, 2003] B. Selic, The Pragmatics of Model-Driven Development, IEEE Software 20 (5) (2003) 19-25.

Tools

• DUET (http://codip.grci.com/Tools/Tools.html)
• Xpetal (http://www.langdale.com.au/styler/xpetal)
• Protégé (http://protege.stanford.edu)
  • XMI backend (http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/xmi/)
  • UML backend (http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/uml)
  • RDF backend (http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/rdf/)
  • OWL plug-in (http://protege.stanford.edu/plugins/owl/)
• IBM/Rational Rose (http://www.rational.com, http://www-306.ibm.com/software/rational/)
• Poseidon for UML (http://www.gentleware.com)
• NetBeans’ MetaData Repository – MDR (http://mdr.netbeans.org)

Presenters profile

Dragan Gašević received the B.S., M.S., and PhD degrees in informatics and computer engineering from the Department of Computer Science, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, in 2000, 2002, and 2004 respectively. He is a senior lecturer of computer science at the Department of Informatics and Computer Engineering, Military Academy, Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, where he teaches expert systems, object oriented programming and modeling, and computer architecture. His current research interests are in the area of ontology development, Semantic Web, XML-based interoperability, integration between software engineering and knowledge engineering techniques, and Petri nets. So far, he has authored/co-authored more than 70 research papers. Mr. Gašević is a member of the GOOD OLD AI research group, and a student member of the ACM. He can be reached at http://afrodita.rcub.bg.ac.yu/~gasevic.

Vladan Devedžić received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in electronic and computer engineering from the School of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, in 1982, 1988, and 1993, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and Montenegro, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. He has worked as a Research and Senior Research Scientist with the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Belgrade, and with “ Mihailo Pupin” Institute, Belgrade, Yugoslavia. In 2002, he was awarded a Visiting Erskine Fellow Grant and spent six months as a visiting professor of Computer Science at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. His work experience includes research and development in the areas of artificial intelligence and software engineering. His current efforts and research interests are oriented toward practical engineering aspects of developing intelligent educational systems on the Web. He has written more than 200 papers (24 of them have been published in internationally recognized journals by publishers such as ACM, IEEE, Elsevier, Pergamon Press, etc.), three books on intelligent systems, and several chapters in books on intelligent systems and software engineering edited by distinguished scientists. He participates to several ongoing R&D projects, both national and international. Dr. Devedžić is a member of the International Society for Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED). He can be reached at http://fon.fon.bg.ac.yu/~devedzic.

Dragan Djurić received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in information systems from the FON- School of Business Administration, University of Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro, in 2002 and 2004, respectively. He is a PhD student at FON – School of Business Administration, University of Belgrade, and also a member of GOOD OLD AI research group. So far, he has authored/co-authored about 20 research papers. His interests mostly include Enterprise software architecture, Object-Oriented development, Java platform and Intelligent Information Systems. He can be reached at http://www.dragandjuric.com.

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