the many ways of research in semantic technologies
DESCRIPTION
Invited talk at the Doctoral Consortium in EKAW 2014TRANSCRIPT
The many ways of research insemantic technologies
Mathieu d'Aquin - @mdaquin
slideshare.net/mdaquin
Knowledge Media Institute, The Open University
It's like a Ukulele...
What is research?
Image: http://flickr.com/photos/gabrielleee/4619731702
It's like playing the Ukulele...
What is doing research?
Image: http://flickr.com/photos/gabrielleee/4619731702
____________________*____________*_______*____*____*___...
Doing Research/Playing the Ukulele
____________________*____________*_______*____*____*___...
Doing Research/Playing the Ukulele
*: Playing to family/friends, try to impress a potential partner, playing agig/concert, etc.
*: Submitting/presenting/defending paper/dissertation/thesis
____________________*____________*_______*____*____*___...
Doing Research/Playing the Ukulele
*: Playing to family/friends, try to impress a potential partner, playing agig/concert, etc.
*: Submitting/presenting/defending paper/dissertation/thesis
__: Periods that start with not knowing what you are doing and duringwhich you work it out, i.e. the most important part, and the one nobody
wants to hear about!
What happen during * timeYou show the results of the __ times
Submit defend thesis/dissertation:a structured synthesis of youresearch.
Conferences: EKAW, K-CAP, ISWC,ESWC, ECAI, IJCAI, AAAI, ...
Journals: DKE, Data Semantics,Applied Ontology, KnowledgeEngineering Review, Journal of WebSemantics, Semantic Web Journal, ...
picture:http://flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/4647592085/
What's that?
Depends on the researchmethodology...
Depends on the researchmethodology...3 Types of Research
Exploratory research: Identify a question or a problem.Constructive research: Test theories and propose answers toquestions and problems.Empirical research: Test and acquire new knowledge by observation.
Depends on the researchmethodology...
Many Types of Methodology
Quantitative: Based on quantifiable data andmeasurements
Qualitative: Based on observations anddescription of specific situations
Others and in between... (e.g. meta-analysis)
Depends on the researchmethodology...
What do we do in KA/KE/SW?
Quantitative QualitativeExploratoryConstructiveEmpirical
Depends on the researchmethodology...
What do we do in KA/KE/SW?*
Quantitative QualitativeExploratoryConstructive +++Empirical + +
*My subjective view
Example of constructiveresearch in KA/KE/SW
Nikolov, Andriy; d'Aquin, Mathieu and Motta, Enrico (2012). Unsupervised learning of linkdiscovery configuration. In ESWC 2012
Problem: Link discovery requires configurationExisting work: Use supervise techniques to learn theseconfigurationsSolution: Use genetic algorithms to learn them in an unsupervisedmannerEvaluation: Quantitative - through a benchmark
Example of constructiveresearch in KA/KE/SW
d'Aquin, Mathieu and Motta, Enrico (2011). Extracting relevant questions to an RDF dataset usingformal concept analysis. In: K-CAP 2011.
Problem: Understanding what is in alinked dataset is long and difficultExisting work: Metadata, tagging,visualisations, giving indirect views ofwhat can be done with the datasetSolution: Extract relevant questionsautomatically using Formal ConceptAnalysisEvaluation: Quantitiative - based on asurvey
Example of empirical researchin KA/KE/SW
Scheuermann, Andreas; Motta, Enrico; Mulholland, Paul; Gangemi, Aldo and Presutti, Valentina(2013). An empirical perspective on representing time. In: K-CAP 2013.
Theory: Different representations oftime have different impact on people'sability to use themTesting method: survey /questionnaireAnalysis: Mostly quantitative -compare results with differentrepresentations, but also a bitqualitative
Example of empirical researchin KA/KE/SW
Ilaria Tiddi, Mathieu d'Aquin and Enrico Motta, Quantifying the bias in data links. In EKAW 2014.
Theory: Linked datasets are biased towards certain situations;Tthesebiases can be extracted from links to other datasetsTesting methods: Automated measurement of the significance ofdifferences between datasetsAnalysis: Quantitative - t-test
Example of exploratoryresearch in KA/KE/SW
Mathieu d’Aquin, Claudio Baldassarre, Laurian Gridinoc, Sofia Angeletou, Marta Sabou, andEnrico Motta, Characterizing Knowledge on the Semantic Web with Watson. In EON at ISWC 2007.
Area to explore: Ontologies on the webExploration method: Extract characteristices (e.g. size, lang, logic)Analysis: Quantitative - Analysis of distributions
Research is about contributing to knowledge in an area.
Why is this important?
Doing a PhD is about making one,substantial, self-contained, valid
research contribution.
In other words...Constructive
ResearchEmpirical Research Exploratory Research
y1 Understanddomain
Read Read Read
y1 Develophypothesis
There is a bettersolution to a problem
There is a theory toprove/disprove
There is a domain withphenomena to explore
y2 Developresearch
Create a new solutionto the problem
Design theexperiment
Design the explorationmethod
y3 Obtainresults
Evaluate solution Analyse experiment Extract patterns
y3 Synthetise Write Write Write
ConclusionThere are many ways learn the
ukulele. There are many ways to do
research in KA/KE/SW.Some are more common than
others.
You are playing the ukulelewell when:
Your friends don't run awaywhen you start.
You have done good researchwhen:
It is validated, evaluated, proved.
Choosing an establishedmethodology makes you lifeeasier, and helps your peers
(EKAW, ISWC...), (ESWC, ...)
: SSSW 2015 is especially good!
Things that can help...Doctoral consortium PhD Symposiums
Summer Schools
http://sssw.org/2015
Thanks!
Carlo Allocca Fouad Zablith
Ilaria Tiddi Enrico Daga
Doing a PhD
Source: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Doing a PhD
Source: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Doing a PhD
Source: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Doing a PhD
Source: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Doing a PhD
Source: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Doing a PhD
Source: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
Doing a PhD
Source: http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/
A proper research methodologyso that you can prove that you
did...
... and not that...