Schema Interoperability

Liam Magee

Global Cities Institute

RMIT University

Melbourne, Australia

Background

ARC involving RMIT, FujiXerox Australia, Common Ground Publishing

“The impact of the Semantic Web on Document Management and Print Industries”

3 years – 2006 – 2009

Focus on:

– Standards and interoperability in publishing supply chain

– Evolving business models

– Challenges of customer engagement PhD (part of project):

– “The Commensurability of Semantic Web Ontologies”

The Semantic Web

Proposal for interconnected “web of data”

– Began circa 1998

– Facts in formal, logic-based languages

– Related to XML, relational databases; also AI research

Built on formal semantics, existing WWW infrastructure:

– Inferences over one or many “ontologies” (formal schemas)

– Necessary and sufficient conditions for class membership

– URI's as global unique naming scheme

But:

– Complex to use in practice

– Simpler approaches available

– Problem of conflicting “paradigms” or “perspectives”

Semantic Web – Linked Data

Schemas as Perspectives...

• Thesis: developed framework and software

– To discover background (tacit) knowledge

– Applied social science methods to examine: what perspectives underpin schemas?

– How to discover this for any schema?• Look at online sources: debates in forums, mailing lists

• Examine cultures...

• Schemas treated as cultural artefacts

• Trying to discover underlying conceptual paradigms

– Framework, software: apparatus for doing this...

Schemas as Perspectives...

Commensurability of Schemas

• Schemas, standards interoperability depend on context - no silver bullet solutions

• Schema matching algorithms available

• Translation of schema meanings:

– Interpretating schema terms, concepts

– Understanding background cultures

– Analysing purpose, context of translation

• So frameworks can supplement:

– Help evaluate feasibility, cost, scope of work

Culture Culture

Schema Translation Scenario

Schema 1 Schema 2

Translator

Degree of Commensurability

Context of Translation

Estimate of work

Problem forTranslation

Results so far...

• Challenges with constructing standards

– Rival standards: • case study on document formats

– Microsoft and the world: OOXML vs ODF)– Clearly vested economic, political interests on both sides

– Other reasons:• Methodological: different approaches to classifying...

• Teleological: different purposes to classifying...

• Operational: different uses of classifications, data...

• Semantic: different terminologies, “language games”

• Theoretical: differing paradigms, perspectives

Community Sector Example

• “Service” paradigm: • Service provider

• Client

• Client relationship

• “Community development” paradigm:• Facilitator

• Community

• Community engagement relationship

• Not always interchangeable:

– reflect different underlying commitments, practices, vocabularies

More schemas – about schemas

– Cultural context is helpful – but leads to endless interpretation?

– Useful to develop taxonomies about schemas:• How are schemas developed? What methods are used?

(Process)

• What motivates their development? (Purpose)

• How are they used? (Practice)

• What underlying theories are used? (Perspective)

– Accompanying methods, analytic tools, software

– Framework designed as “practioner's guide” to help match schemas – pragmatic, heuristic, “guiding” emphasis

Some Notes on Interoperability...

• Dialogue, “principle of charity”

• Costly: requires workshops, committees, time

• “Minimax” strategy: minimal interoperability for maximal benefit

• “Orthogonality”: different perspectives around common, consensual semantic core

• Standardisation, interoperability: foster and restrain organisational innovation

Cycles of Standardisation / Differentiation

• Initial differentiation:

– time, cost constraints, lack of awareness of other schemas

• Drive towards standardisation:

– sharing information, improved queries / reporting, consolidated client histories

• New drives towards differentiation:

– failed interoperability efforts; new, incompatible systems; new operating environments, classificatory schemes

• History of document formats good example

Contra Interoperability

• Loss of “local” representations of meaning

• Conflicting interests

• Trust

• Legality

• Lack of flexibility

• Inhibits innovation

• Interoperability not end in itself – subject to intra- and inter-organisational rationales

• Criteria, toolkit useful for assessing pros and cons of interoperability

• Thank you...