Tesfaye and Hedden’s presentation will focus on a case study for a targeted content recommendation engine that suggests relevant course content based on users’ performance on online training materials and test completion scores. In addition to showing how the system was designed and created, this webinar presents the more fundamental principles of taxonomy and ontology design as the backbone of the AI solution.

The webinar will be held on Tuesday, December 15, 2020, 11:00a.m. – 12:00p.m. EST. Register for the webinar here.

About Enterprise Knowledge

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) is a professional services firm that integrates Knowledge Management, Data and Information Management, Information Technology, and Agile Approaches to deliver comprehensive solutions. Some of our core services include: AI and Semantic Technologies design, strategy, and implementation; Taxonomy and Ontology Design; Content Strategy and Design; Change Management and Communication; and Agile Transformation and Facilitation.

About SWC and PoolParty

PoolParty is a semantic technology platform developed, owned, and licensed by the Semantic Web Company. The company is based in the EU and is involved in international R&D projects, continuously impacting product development. It has been a pioneer in the Semantic Web for over a decade.

The post Lulit Tesfaye and Heather Hedden to Speak at Upcoming Webinar on Taxonomies, Knowledge Graphs, and AI appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Vilenio’s presentation will share common use cases for pursuing a recommender system and discuss how to leverage and enrich business taxonomies to calculate relevancy and derive knowledge graphs driven by Semantic Web based  standard technologies like ontology management and graph database platforms. Further, Vilenio will explore how organizations can derive and expand the meaningful features supported by knowledge graphs.    

The webinar will be held on Thursday, November 19, at 11am EST. Register for the webinar here.

The post Vilenio to Speak at an Upcoming Webinar on Turning a Taxonomy into a Recommendation Engine appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Enterprise Knowledge is pleased to announce that COO, Joe Hilger, will be chairing SEMANTiCs US. For 15 years, the SEMANTiCS conference has served as the leading European conference on Semantic Technologies and AI. Researchers, industry experts, and business leaders have attended the conference to learn about the latest trends in the fields of Machine Learning, Data Science, Linked Data, and Natural Language Processing.  

Teaming with Semantic Web Company, Enterprise Knowledge is sponsoring the conference to ensure its expansion into  the Western Hemisphere. The inaugural SEMANTiCS US will be held in Austin, TX, April 21-23, 2020 at the AT&T Conference Center. SEMANTiCS US will offer simultaneous tracks to engage any level of interest and experience, ranging from novice to expert. The focus of the conference will be on delivering real world case studies and practical guidance, ensuring that attendees gain immediately actionable advice and valuable learning.

The conference will include three tracks:

• Case Studies and Outcomes – Real world, business-focused success stories of how knowledge graphs, ontologies, and AI have been applied to address business needs.  The track will focus on return on investment and value to organizations.
• Methodologies and Best Practices – Practical guidance and actionable advice to guide practitioners and stakeholders through every aspect of project planning, design, execution, and iteration. 
• Technologies and Innovations – Advanced technical presentations, delving into leading software, integrations, and techniques to share the latest leading edge developments and solutions.

Joe Hilger stated: “I am excited to be chairing SEMANTiCs US! I will frame the agenda to include plenary sessions, panels, networking events, and other keynote sessions, maximizing the exchange of ideas and bringing all of the conference elements together to surface key themes and interactions. Our agenda will also incorporate interactive workshops and exercises to ensure learning and knowledge transfer.”

The call for papers for the conference is presently open and available at https://2020-us.semantics.cc/call-industry-use-case-presentations

About Enterprise Knowledge

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) is a services firm that integrates Knowledge Management, Information Management, Information Technology, and Agile Approaches to deliver comprehensive solutions. Our mission is to form true partnerships with our clients, listening and collaborating to create tailored, practical, and results-oriented solutions that enable them to thrive and adapt to changing needs.

Our core services include strategy, design, and development of Knowledge and Information Management systems, with proven approaches for Taxonomy and Ontology Design, Project Strategy and Road Mapping, Brand and Content Strategy, Change Management and Communication, and Agile Transformation and Facilitation. At the heart of these services, we always focus on working alongside our clients to understand their needs, ensuring we can provide practical and achievable solutions on an iterative, ongoing basis.

The post Joe Hilger Chairing SEMANTiCs US Conference appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

• Manage content more effectively;
• Maximize findability and discoverability of information;
• Increase the reuse of “hidden” and unknown information;
• Elevate SEO for public sites; and
• Create relationships between disparate and distributed information items.

EK’s Semantic Web Starter Kit is an easy and efficient way for organizations to get started with their first Semantic solution. The starter kit will help your organization to:

• Get introduced to semantic technologies;
• Take up to 28 hours of web-based training on ontologies and the semantic web;
• Develop an initial ontology that can grow over time;
• Validate the ontology using real content and information; and
• Implement a pilot version of PoolParty to manage your ontology.

The Semantic Web Starter Kit begins with a customized workshop where we introduce semantic technologies to your business and technology teams, align with the organization’s content relationships management goals, and develop measurable success criteria for the pilot.

We utilize the industry leading taxonomy, thesaurus, and ontology management tool PoolParty, developed by our partners Semantic Web Company. PoolParty allows us to help our clients model their domain knowledge, utilize available Linked Data resources, and integrate disparate internal and external data sources with both structured and unstructured data to provide seamless integration across the enterprise.

As part of the Semantic Web Starter Kit, we work with your knowledge management and IT specialists to define an initial ontology or augment your existing ones. With the starter ontology completed, we validate it using your existing content from various sources and iteratively adjust it to best model your domain knowledge and provide high-quality auto-tagging suggestions, concept identification, and knowledge linking.   

We implement PoolParty in a reusable and scalable proof of concept instance to help you achieve next generation knowledge integration across your organization.

Benefits & Outcomes

	Streamlined introduction to Semantic Web concepts and best practices.
	Quick, working, and reusable proof of concept installation of PoolParty to manage ontologies for your organization.
	Completed starter ontology validated against your existing content.
	Auto-tagging suggestions based on your content.
	Clear, practical, and tailored next-steps plan for enriching and expanding the starter ontology to the rest of your organization.
	Training and transfer of knowledge to your knowledge managers and SMEs, including web-based certification courses in Semantic Web concepts and PoolParty administration.

Semantic Web Starter Kit Process

The Semantic Web Starter Kit is a 10 to 20-day engagement, depending on the defined scope and complexity of the proof of concept. We break down this project in the following tasks:

	Kick-off Workshop Vision and objectives for the Starter Kit project Presentation of ontology primer High-level review of existing taxonomies, thesauri, and/or ontologies
	Prototype specification Analysis of existing taxonomies/ontologies and content Interviews and focus groups with Subject Matter Experts as necessary Technical and functional description of targeted functionality
	Test environment   Installation and configuration of PoolParty at customer site or cloud server with a 90-day free license
	Data analysis and processing Iterative analysis and development of initial ontology/taxonomy Integration of predetermined internal and external data sources Validation and tuning of initial ontology/taxonomy
	Your prototype Functional prototype/proof of concept of a PoolParty instance utilizing a predetermined subset of your taxonomy/ontology and data sources Starter taxonomy/ontology based on your domain
	Roadmap Guidance on how to continue enriching your ontology Best practices for PoolParty administration and integration
	Access to PoolParty Academy online training and certification for 2 project team members for 3 months covering: Taxonomy, ontology, linked data, and semantic web concepts PoolParty configuration and administration to allow you to manage your taxonomies and/or ontologies and integrate additional data sources into your knowledge graph

Contact us at info@enterprise-knowledge.com to get your Semantic Web Starter Kit.

The post Semantic Web Starter Kit appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

As a reminder, our most successful ontology projects deliver business users new and meaningful ways to see relationships between content and information. The complexity of the ontology is hidden from the business users who are able to discover related content without the need for formal or rigid navigation between content. The content owners/administrators are able to manage the relationships between content at a much more granular level with minimal additional effort. Often, these changes give our customers new ways to consolidate and present content and information both internal and external to their organization. Most importantly the value of these changes is visible to the project stakeholders and sponsors.

The design recommendations in this post assume that the project recommendations in Part I have already been implemented. These recommendations are focused on maximizing business value and usability.

Use Non-Technical Terms

Most ontology designers use terms like graphs, classes, nodes, and edges. Though these are accurate descriptions of what we are designing, they make ontologies seem unapproachable and difficult. Make a point of replacing these highly technical terms with terms that are more recognizable to your stakeholders.

It is important that you communicate regularly with your stakeholders. Using non-technical terms will make the project feel more approachable and more business focused. As a result, it will be easier to get feedback from your stakeholders on their wants and needs.

Identify Your Domain 

The first step in creating an ontology is to identify the domain to which it belongs. By this, I mean the category or topical area the ontology describes. This cannot be done in a vacuum. Review your content and then come up with 3-4 terms that describe your domain. Use these terms to search for public ontologies with similar domains. To find similar domains that are publicly available, look in places like the following: 

• http://wiki.DBPedia.org
• http://protegewiki.stanford.edu/wiki/Protege_Ontology_Library
• http://semanticweb.org/wiki/Ontology.html
• https://www.w3.org/standards/semanticweb/ontology
• http://ontologydesignpatterns.org
• http://schema.org/  

Evaluate the content and entities in these public domains to see which one is most closely aligned with the content and entities in your domain. Use the public domain as the starting point for the rest of your work. Not only will this give you a headstart on the work, it will also ensure that you are following a standard that others use so that you can more easily integrate your domain with others.

Prioritize the Entities to Model 

Each ontology has a list of classes (think entities or types of things) that need to be modeled. For example, an ontology about people in an organization would likely include the following entities:

It would be very easy to create a huge list of entities for any domain that you work with. Many people begin by creating an exhaustive list to make sure they capture everything. This is a common mistake for people creating their first ontology. Start with a smaller list of entities that are easily recognizable and model those first. Prioritize the entities to develop through the use cases and goals you defined at the beginning of the project. This approach will save time and allow you to show value sooner. It will also result in a design that meets the business needs without introducing undue complexity and clutter.

Minimize Characteristics and Look for Patterns

The next step is to model the characteristics of these entities. If you are following a standard, some of this work may already be done for you. Some standards allow for a great deal of flexibility to define these characteristics. In these cases, you will need to make decisions about how much information you want to manage. Minimize the number of characteristics you capture though the use cases and goals for the project. Less is always better as you start out. Also, look for repeatable patterns that can be applied to as many entities as possible. Consistency among entities simplifies implementation and simplifies the way content can be queried using the SQL-like query language (SparQL).

Prioritize Relationships

Identifying the ways in which entities are related is one of the most powerful features of semantic ontologies. It is, unfortunately, also one of the easiest ways to create an ontology that is overly complex. Review the goals for your ontology. Prioritize the types of relationships to those that directly support the goals of your taxonomy. Try to limit these relationship types to less than 5 if possible. As with all of these things, it is better to start small and grow than to try and be comprehensive with your first ontology.

Validate your Design

Ontologies can be confusing to people who have never worked with them before. This does not mean that you should develop the ontology in a vacuum or without validation. Make sure you have a visual representation of your ontology and share it with the project stakeholders at every stopping point in the project. Show how the ontology relates to their content and information and how it will help them meet the objectives defined at the beginning of the project.

This feedback loop accomplishes three things:

• Your stakeholders see progress and understand why they are developing an ontology.
• The stakeholders may spot things that are missing, and
• You can validate that the design is easy to understand.

It is important that this is done before the ontology and its related features are implemented so that you do not go down the wrong path.

Ontologies offer a powerful way to manage and present content. Technology has advanced to the point where the ontologies and the semantic web are now a reality. An effective ontology can:

• Provide new ways to navigate and find content,
• Expose relationships between content that were once not visible, and
• Provide a seamless view of content across organizations.

I encourage all of you to consider how an ontology can improve your content or knowledge management sites. We are happy to help if you need ontology consultants to assist in the design of your ontology. Contact us at info@enterprise-knowledge.com.

The post Ontology Design Best Practices – Part II appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Faceted Navigation

Faceted navigation uses categories to help users navigate the site and narrow their search.  When users seek to find content, they iteratively modify their search queries based on information presented in the search results. Faceted navigation takes advantage of this behavior and allows users to simultaneously search and browse while narrowing the amount of content they interact with. This reduces the number of queries a user must enter and gives users better insight into the structure and semantic categories used on the site or intranet.  When this search functionality is implemented in an intranet or website, it brings a common and positive user experience while increasing findability. PoolParty can be used to create faceted navigation like the one below:

Online demo: http://marklogic-demo.poolparty.biz/

Semantic Links

When we expand the hierarchical relationships found in a taxonomy to support associative and equivalence relationships, we create a thesaurus. Thesauri allow us to take advantage of the benefits provided by a taxonomy while managing synonyms and associative relationships. Thesauri help guide users to one term regardless of what terms they use to search. This makes search results more accurate. Connecting synonyms, near-synonyms, acronyms, abbreviations, lexical variants, common misspellings, and related terms to one preferred term allows us to create rich semantic links and minimize semantic ambiguity. If the information environment is multilingual, equivalent terms in other languages can be displayed. Semantic links of search terms can be displayed in addition to the actual search results. Consequently, the user receives not only documents but also contextual information around a topic of interest. The example below shows how additional information around ‘photovoltaic’ helps to navigate to related topics like ‘solar cells’ or ‘solar thermal’.

Infobox contextualizes a search term and provides semantic links

Landing or topic pages

 Taxonomies help publishers to maintain and create landing or topic pages dynamically. For example, a taxonomy as illustrated on the left, could aggregate all content assets annotated with any of the subconcepts (recursively) of ‘Psychotherapy’. This approach supports a more dynamic creation of menu items and decouples the semantics of an asset from its position in a navigation structure. The result is a search-driven customer journey  rather than a static navigation structure that can be  modified and extended at any time e.g. to support temporary campaigns. In this four-layered content architecture (see image below), navigation and menu structures are clearly separated from metadata, and from taxonomies that describe the semantics of metadata independently from the underlying content assets. As a result, menu points can be modelled as ‘containers’ of concepts derived from the taxonomy (e.g. with skos:Collection). This approach for a dynamic management of navigation structures is highly efficient, especially in multi-site environments. With the use of poly-hierarchies, multiple navigation paths can be created, which lead to the same content from various menus and sub-menus.

Four-layered content architecture

Personalization

The basic foundation to delivering a personalized customer experience is common semantics of user interests or skills and available contents or products. Controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and domain ontologies help to link user interest or skill profiles to related content assets. Recommender Systems based on semantic knowledge graphs are more precise than other techniques like  Vector Space Models: concept based approaches don’t use just the words being found in a text, but rather use the concepts behind the content assets to predict its semantic similarity to other objects. This makes it possible to find relations between entities that do not have anything in common at first glance, i.e. when taking a look at the words or phrases being used.

Conclusion

Consistency is the foundation of any positive user experience. When users can quickly understand an information environment they are more likely to enjoy using it and use it frequently. Taxonomies and thesauri allow us to categorize and centralize an information environment in a way that makes sense to the user. This creates a consistent mental model that users can easily understand. In short, taxonomies drive user experience. PoolParty (www.poolparty.biz) is one of our favorite tools for developing and managing effective taxonomies and thesauri that create positive user experiences across any information environment.  

This blog was co-written by Andreas Blumauer of Semantic Web Company.

Andreas Blumauer (Semantic Web Company)

Andreas is CEO of Semantic Web Company and Product Architect of PoolParty Semantic Suite. He has worked on semantic web technologies, products, and methodologies since 2001. He is passionate about providing added value to organizations by linking and contextualizing information in a meaningful way based on semantic web standards.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreasblumauer

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