TWCA use case-driven iterative method for

building a provenance-aware GCIS ontology

Xiaogang Ma a, Jin Guang Zheng a, Justin Goldstein b,c, Linyun Fu a, Steve Aulenbach b,c, Curt Tilmes c,d, Peter Fox a

a Tetherless World Constellation, Rensselaer Polytechnic Instituteb University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

c U.S. Global Change Research Program, Washingtond NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

TWCWho we are

• Global Change Information System: Information Model and Semantic Application Prototypes (GCIS-IMSAP)

• Working group:

Brian Duggan

Peter Fox

Justin Goldstein

Curt Tilmes Xiaogang Ma Steve AulenbachJin G Zheng

Stephan Zednik Anne WapleAna P Privette

Chengchong DuJun XuAnusha AkkirajuAaron Smith…

Linyun Fu

TWCWhere are we

National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)

Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Sustainability (CENRC)

Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR)

U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)

White House Office of Science and

Technology Policy (OSTP)

National Climate Assessment

(NCA)

Global Change Information

System (GCIS)

GCIS: Information Model and Semantic Application Prototypes (GCIS-IMSAP)

National Climate AssessmentDevelopment Advisory Committee (NCADAC)

TWCWhat we do

• The ongoing research concentrates on the provenance for the NCA3 report.

• In the future, the GCIS will collect and link records of publications, datasets, instruments, organizations, methods, people, etc. eventually covering provenance information for the entire scope of global change.

TWCSemantic Web methodology and technology development process (Fox and McGuiness, 2008)

Source: http://goo.gl/2XkDc

Our method

TWC

Source: http://goo.gl/2XkDc

Identifies questions to be asked, resources to be used to answer the questions, and methods to be used to determine the answer.

Use case template:http://goo.gl/Ys2bW

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Source: http://goo.gl/2XkDc

A facilitator: set and monitor direction, provide guidance for scoping the use case and timeline for implementation.

Team formation: domain experts, data and information producers, knowledge and information modelers, software engineers, and a scribe.

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Check the source document for more details: http://goo.gl/2XkDc

For example, Group meeting: Titanpad, Skpye, GotoMeetingConceptual modeler: CMapOntology editor: Protege, Notepad++, Evolution environments: TopBraidValidators/checkers: Epimorphics Linked Data API (ELDA)

TWCOur first use case

• Visit data center website of dataset used to generate a report figure

• A viewer wishes to identify the source of the data in a particular NCA3 figure. A reference to the paper in which the figure was originally published in appears in the figure caption. Clicking that reference displays a page of information about the paper, including a link to the datasets used in the paper. Following each of those links presents a page of information about the dataset, including links back to the agency/data center web page describing the dataset in more detail and making the actual data available for order or download.

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TWCOur first use case

• Visit data center website of dataset used to generate a report figure

• A viewer wishes to identify the source of the data in a particular NCA3 figure. A reference to the paper in which the figure was originally published in appears in the figure caption. Clicking that reference displays a page of information about the paper, including a link to the datasets used in the paper. Following each of those links presents a page of information about the dataset, including links back to the agency/data center web page describing the dataset in more detail and making the actual data available for order or download.

TWCOur second use case

• Roles of people in the generation of a chapter in the NCA3 draft report

• A reader sees that Chapter 6 (Agriculture) in the NCA3 draft report was written by a list of authors. On the title page of that chapter the reader can see the role of each author, i.e., convening lead author, lead author or contributing author, in the generation of this report chapter.

• We decided to use the PROV-O ontology to describe this use case

TWCThe three Starting Point classes in PROV-O ontology and the properties that relate them

Source: http://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/

TWCMapping the use case into PROV-O

Authors of Chapter 6

Chapter 6 in NCA3

Writing of Chapter 6 in NCA3

isA isA

isA

TWCRoles of agents in an activity in PROV-O

TWCMap roles of chapter authors into PROV-O

Writing of Chapter 6 in NCA3

isAAuthors of Chapter 6

isA

Convening lead author

Lead author

Contributing author

isA

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Roles of people in the writing of chapter 6 (Agriculture) in NCA3 – starts from Chapter 6 writing as an activity

Here just three of the eight authors are shown. Each author had a specific role for this chapter.

USE CASE 2

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We can also use PROV-O to describe roles of agents for an entity

We used PROV-O for describing roles of agents in an activity

TWCRoles of people in the writing of chapter 6 (Agriculture) in NCA3 – starts from Chapter 6 as an entity

Here just three of the eight authors are shown. Each author had a specific role for this chapter.

USE CASE 2

TWCOur third use case

• Provenance tracing of NASA contributions to Figure 1.2 in NCA3 draft report

• A reader sees that Figure 1.2 “Sea Level Rise: Past, Present and Future” of the NCA3 draft report cites four data sources in the figure caption. Selecting the third citation displays a page of information about the paper and a citation to the dataset used in the paper. Clicking the citation link the reader opens a page containing information about the dataset, including a description that the dataset is derived from data produced by the TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason altimeter missions funded by NASA and CNES. Following each of these missions presents a page about the platforms, instruments and sensors in that mission.

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Provenance tracing of NASA contributions to Figure 1.2 “Sea Level Rise: Past, Present and Future” in NCA3

USE CASE 3

TWC• We have had and will have more use cases…

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TWCPrimary classes and relationships in current version of the GCIS ontology

Current result

TWCMap to PROV-O ontologyCurrent result

TWCMap to PROV-O ontologyCurrent result

TWCWrap up

• An use case-driven iterative method for ontology engineering

• In GCIS ontology works:– Re-use existing ontologies and schemas: dctype, dcterms, bibo,

org, foaf, etc.– Map to PROV-O ontology

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More information:Xiaogang (Marshall) Mamax7@rpi.edu

Thank you!