presentation of the paper entitled "STAR:chart – Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications" accepted at the BIS 2009 http://bis.kie.ae.poznan.pl/12th_bis/ (April 27th, 2009)

1. STAR:chart – Preserving Data
Semantics in Web-based
Applications
Presenter: Irene Celino – CEFRIEL, http://swa.cefriel.it
Paper Authors: Irene Celino, Dario Cerizza, Francesco Corcoglioniti,
Alberto Guarino, Andrea Turati and Emanuele Della Valle
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications
12th Business Information System Conference (BIS 2009) – Poznan, April 27th 2009 - © CEFRIEL 2009

2. Agenda
Problem statement and motivation
The STAR:chart framework
High level view of its conceptual foundations
Framework’s primitives
Technical view: components and execution flow
Critical analysis of the framework
Case study: STAR:chart in Service-Finder
The Service-Finder project and its portal
“Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Conclusions
Evaluation and open issues
Future steps
2
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

3. Agenda
Problem statement and motivation
The STAR:chart framework
High level view of its conceptual foundations
Framework’s primitives
Technical view: components and execution flow
Critical analysis of the framework
Case study: STAR:chart in Service-Finder
The Service-Finder project and its portal
“Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Conclusions
Evaluation and open issues
Future steps
3
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

4. Problem statement and motivation
I know what my data
are about
I know how to design a
Web designer
Data manager Web application
Web knowledge
Data knowledge
Mmmh… I think the Web design doesn’t reflect
the meaning of my data. Can you make my data
Sigh… I made my best to present the data, but they
Web presentation more effective and meaningful?
are hard to understand for me. Can you better explain
to me what they mean and your expectations?
I don’t want to deal with
technical details…
And I don’t want to
learn all data details…
4
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

5. Cherry picking from today solutions
Web 2.0 advent put a strong accent on user experience
There are several attempts to categorize Interaction Patterns
On this basis, we talk about “fruition modalities”, i.e. how interaction
patterns are made concrete on the Web and how this impacts on the
various forms that user navigation takes
The long-lasting field of Web engineering studied and
systematize the way to design Web applications
A common way to develop Web application is to design Web
Information Architecture and to realize it via “sitemaps”
From this trend, we took the experience of model-driven Web
engineering and we apply it with Semantic Web technologies
Semantic Web technologies express their best through the
capability to model knowledge via ontologies
Ontologies, mapping and rules are commonly used to draw
correspondences between different systems and conceptualizations
We use ontologies also to model interaction patterns, fruition modalities,
sitemaps and Web engineering and we use mappings and rules to
relate those ideas to specific domain knowledge
5
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

6. Agenda
Problem statement and motivation
The STAR:chart framework
High level view of its conceptual foundations
Framework’s primitives
Technical view: components and execution flow
Critical analysis of the framework
Case study: STAR:chart in Service-Finder
The Service-Finder project and its portal
“Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Conclusions
Evaluation and open issues
Future steps
6
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

7. STAR:chart foundations – high level
STAR:chart Web knowledge
Data knowledge
framework
STAR:chart is a framework to develop knowledge-intensive Web applications
that reduces the gap between data managers’ point of view and Web designers’ one,
by letting data managers express their requirements in a more straightforward way
and by helping Web designers to deal only with design-related issues.
issues
domain STAR:ship
ontology ontology
Data manager
Web designer
STAR:dust
Conceptualization of Web
ontology
applications structure
Conceptualization of
interaction patterns
7
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

8. STAR:chart conceptual foundations
interaction patterns
STAR:dust is the Web presentation and
STAR:dust
interaction conceptual model
ontology
The mapping definition is the artifact – by the
data manager – that expresses the role of the
mapping
data in the final Web application; it puts in relation
definition
the data ontology with the STAR:dust ontology
The widgets are the software components that
widgets implement the presentation and interaction
patterns defined in the STAR:dust ontology
Web appl. patterns
STAR:ship is the Web sitemap structure
conceptual model
STAR:ship
ontology
The sitemap specification is the artifact – semi-
automatically produced by the framework itself –
that specifies the actual structure of the Web
sitemap
application in terms of widgets; it is expressed in
specification
terms of the STAR:ship ontology
8
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

9. STAR:chart framework architecture
STAR:ship
widgets
STAR:dust
ontology
ontology
**
framework portal pages
core generation
* *
mapping sitemap
definition specification
* config. time
** run-time
domain
ontology datasource
9
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

10. Critical analysis of STAR:chart
Since 2001, several initiatives applied Semantic Web
technologies to develop Web portals: what is the innovation of
STAR:chart w.r.t. previous approaches?
STAR:chart is a framework to develop Web applications (and
not a single portal that makes use of ontologies)
The presentation and navigation semantics are reused across different
instantiations of the framework
STAR:chart applies semantics to describe interaction and
fruition as well as the architecture of Web applications
It builds upon the studies and advances in the field of user experience
and interaction design
STAR:chart abstracts from the specific type of data source
Any kind of data source can be “plugged-in” the framework, provided
that it can be seen as a knowledge base described by a domain
ontology
10
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

11. Agenda
Problem statement and motivation
The STAR:chart framework
High level view of its conceptual foundations
Framework’s primitives
Technical view: components and execution flow
Critical analysis of the framework
Case study: STAR:chart in Service-Finder
The Service-Finder project and its portal
“Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Conclusions
Evaluation and open issues
Future steps
11
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

12. The project
Service-Finder aims at developing a platform for service discovery in which
Service-Finder aims at developing a platform for service discovery in which
Web Services are embedded in a Web 2.0 environment
Web Services are embedded in a Web 2.0 environment
http://demo.service-finder.eu
Automatic
Semantic Search
Semantic Annotation Conceptual Indexing
Combining smart-machine Semantic Matching
and smart-data
Web 2.0
Semantics
User clustering
Knowledge Representation
Realizing Web Service
User-Resource correlation
& Reasoning
Discovery at Web Scale
Semantic Web Services Web Services
As a means to realize As a basic tool to implement
Service Oriented Architecture a Service Oriented Architecture
12
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

13. Service-Finder case study for STAR:chart
Domain ontologies
we mapped to
STAR:dust
Where we
instantiated the
STAR:chart
framework
13
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

14. “Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Mapping between SF ontologies and STAR:dust
STAR:dust
Service-Finder mapping
ontology
ontologies definition
sfo:Service
C dc:title P
P sfo:hasName
SD:RelevantProperty P
P sfo:rating
SD:DetailProperty
sfo:Endpoint P
C
P sfo:availabilityLastMonth
:sampleServiceMapping a SD:PresentationMapping ;
SD:onClass sfo:Service ;
SD:mappingSource sfo:hasName ;
SD:mappingDestination dc:title ;
mappings.n3
SD:mappingDestination SD:RelevantProperty ;
SD:isMultiValue quot;falsequot; ;
rdfs:label quot;Namequot; ;
SD:noValueText quot;-quot;.
14
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

15. “Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Service-Finder portal sitemap
Service details page
TabWidget
LoginWidget
PropertyWidget RatingWidget
AddTagWidget AddCategoryWidget
15
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

16. “Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Widgets’ configuration
STAR:dust
SELECT ?r
WHERE{ SD:RatingProperty P
<x> a Class ;
RatingWidget
RatingProperty ?r.
(Java class)
}
HTML
template
mapping definition
:m1 a SD:PresentationMapping ; Rating:
SD:onClass sfo:Service ;
SD:mappingSource sfo:rating ;
SD:mappingDestination SD:RatingProperty .
SELECT ?r
WHERE{
instance of
<s> a sfo:Service ;
RatingWidget
sfo:rating ?r .
on sfo:Service
}
16
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

17. “Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Widgets’ execution
RatingWidget
(Java class)
HTML
instance of template
SELECT ?r
RatingWidget WHERE{
on sfo:Service Rating:
<s> a sfo:Service ;
sfo:rating ?r .
}
?r
Triples in the datasource
“3.5”
HTTP Request :ServiceX a sfo:Service ;
sfo:rating “3.5” ;
...
Service details page
on :ServiceX
HTTP Response
generated Service details page
HTML Rating:
on :ServiceX
fragment
17
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

18. Agenda
Problem statement and motivation
The STAR:chart framework
High level view of its conceptual foundations
Framework’s primitives
Technical view: components and execution flow
Critical analysis of the framework
Case study: STAR:chart in Service-Finder
The Service-Finder project and its portal
“Behind the scenes” of the SF Interface
Conclusions
Evaluation and open issues
Future steps
18
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

19. Evaluation of STAR:chart in Service-Finder
Explicit user feedbacks
We are collecting users’ feedbacks, both from the portal itself and
from a selected set of users
We are aware that evaluating the development of a Web application built
on the framework (e.g. how much is it easier/faster developing a UI with
STAR:chart?) is not as easy as evaluating the final result
Implicit user feedbacks
The analysis of the portal logs leads both to interesting metrics and
hints on the actual usage of the portal wrt the fruition modalities
The framework comprises a special kind of widgets (called “actions”) for
several functions, among which logging of users’ click stream
Usability questionnaires
We will further evaluate the Service-Finder Interface by means of a
survey about portal usability by involving the open community
We’re looking for volunteers to answer the survey! Anybody available?
19
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

20. Conclusions
Next steps:
RDFa annotations in pages through annotations directly produced
by widgets this enables also the linked data vision
Semi-automation of sitemap specification starting from the
ontologies and the mapping definition
More widgets in the framework library
Long term vision:
It would be nice to have visual tools for mappings and other
configuration-related activities
Either enriching STAR:chart and releasing it open source…
…or using our experience to extend popular CMS (e.g. Drupal is
already embedding Semantic Web stuff): STAR:chart demonstrates
that it is possible, it is feasible and it is effective
20
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications Poznan, April 27th 2009 – © CEFRIEL 2009

21. Thanks for your attention! Any question?
STAR:chart – Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications
Paper Authors: Irene Celino, Dario Cerizza, Francesco Corcoglioniti,
Alberto Guarino, Andrea Turati and Emanuele Della Valle
Contacts: Irene Celino – Semantic Web Practice
CEFRIEL – ICT Institute, Politecnico di Milano
email: irene.celino@cefriel.it – web: http://swa.cefriel.it
phone: +39-02-23954266 – fax: +39-02-23954466
Slides available at: http://www.slideshare.net/iricelino
STAR:chart - Preserving Data Semantics in Web-based Applications
12th Business Information System Conference (BIS 2009) – Poznan, April 27th 2009 - © CEFRIEL 2009