Breaking Down Walls in Enterprise with Social Semantics

Breaking down walls in enterprise
with social semantics

John Breslin
National University of Ireland, Galway

Lecturer at NUI Galway

Engineering and
informatics

• Researcher at DERI, NUI Galway

Founder of the SIOC project

• Semantically-
Interlinked Online
Communities
• Enables
interoperability and
exchange of social
content:
– Blogs, forums, wikis...

Co-founder of boards.ie

• Ireland’s largest
discussion forum site
• 2.25 million
visitors/month
• Irish people seeking
information, or just
chatting about sports,
TV, politics, health,
whatever

Co-founder of StreamGlider, Inc.

• Real-time streaming
newsreader
• Supports social,
multimedia, news
• Can be used as an
enterprise dashboard

Social platforms are like data silos

image from pidgintech.com

Many isolated communities of users and
their data


Need ways to connect these islands


Allowing users to easily travel from one to
another


Enabling users to easily bring their data with
them


Parallels in enterprise

• Workers are using a variety of collaboration platforms
internally in a localised or distributed enterprise

• These platforms remain largely isolated from each other

• Vast amounts of shared items and profiles are
disconnected

image from tinyurl.com/orionw

Object-centred sociality (AKA social
objects)

• Users are connected via a common object:
– Their job, university, hobbies, interests, a date…
• “According to this theory, people don’t just connect to
each other. They connect through a shared object.
[…]Good services allow people to create social objects
that add value.” – JyriEngestrom
– Flickr = photos
– del.icio.us = bookmarks
– Blogs = discussion posts

It’s the social objects we create…

• Discussions
• Bookmarks
• Annotations
• Profiles
• Microblogs
• Multimedia

…that connect us
to other people

The Semantic Web

A brief overview

What’s in a page? And in a link?

?

?

?

Breaking Down Walls in Enterprise with Social Semantics

Tim Berners-Lee, The 1st World Wide Web
Conference, Geneva, May 1994

To a computer, the Web is a flat, boring world, devoid of
meaning. This is a pity, as in fact documents on the Web
describe real objects and imaginary concepts, and give
particular relationships between them. […] Adding semantics
to the Web involves two things: allowing documents which
have information in machine-readable forms, and allowing
links to be created with relationship values. Only when we
have this extra level of semantics will we be able to use
computer power to help us exploit the information to a
greater extent than our own reading.

Identifying resources with URIs

• URIs are used to identify everything in a unique and
non-ambiguous way:
– Not only pages (as on the current Web), but any
resource (people, documents, books, interests, etc.)
– A URI for a person is different from a URI for a
document about the person, because a person is not
a document!
– e.g. http://dbpedia.org/resource/Galway

Defining assertions with RDF

• URIs identify resources:
– How do we define assertions about these resources?
• We use RDF (Resource Description Framework):
– A data model; a directed, labeled graph using URIs
– Various serialisations (RDF/XML, N3, RDFa, etc.)
• RDF is based on triples:
– <subject><predicate><object> .

RDF by example

@prefix dct: <http://purl.org/dc/terms/> .
<http://example.org/dm110-semweb>
dct:title“Introduction to the Semantic Web” ;
dct:author<http://apassant.net/alex> ;
dct:subject <http://dbpedia.org/resource/Semantic_Web> .

Defining semantics with ontologies

• RDF provides a way to write assertions about URIs:
– But what about the semantics of these assertions,
e.g. to state that http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/knows
identifies an acquaintance relationship?
• Ontologies provide common semantics for resources on
the Semantic Web:
– “An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization”
– RDFS and OWL have different expressiveness levels

Ontologies consist mainly of classes and
properties

– :Person a rdfs:Class .
– :father a rdfs:Property .
– :father rdfs:domain :Person .
– :father rdfs:range :Person .

Linked Data

• Building a “Web of Data” to enhance the current Web
• Exposing, sharing and connecting data about things via
dereferenceable URIs
• The Linking Open Data (LOD) project:
– http://linkeddata.org/
– Translating existing datasets into RDF and linking
them together, for example DBpedia (Wikipedia) and
GeoNames, Freebase, BBC programmes, etc.
– Government data available as Linked Data
– LOD cloud in 2007:

image fromrichard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/lod-datasets_2011-09-19_colored.png

Social semantic representation
models

Using ontologies to model social data

Two-way street: the Semantic Web can help
social spaces, vice versa

• Can use the Semantic Web to describe people, content
objects and the connections that bind them all together
so that social spaces can interoperate via semantics
• In the other direction, object-centered social spaces can
serve as rich social data sources for semantic
applications

image from tinyurl.com/highway2

What is FOAF?

• An ontology for describing people and the relationships
that exist between them:
– http://foaf-project.org/
– Identity, personal profiles and social networks
– Can be integrated with other SW vocabularies

• FOAF on the Web:
– LiveJournal, MyOpera, identi.ca, MyBlogLog, hi5,
Fotothing, Videntity, FriendFeed, Ecademy, Typepad

Distributed identity with FOAF

Interlinking identities and networks

SIOC, pronounced shock

image from tinyurl.com/siocshock

Semantically-Interlinked Online
Communities (SIOC)

• Goal of the SIOC ontology is to address interoperability
issues on the Social Web
– sioc-project.org
– W3C member submission in 2007
– SIOC has been adopted in a framework of applications
or modules deployed on hundreds of sites
– Web 2.0, enterprise information integration, HCLS, e-
government

image from tinyurl.com/friendship2

Some of the SIOC core ontology classes
and properties

RDFa in Drupal 7

• Drupal CMS used by 2 percent of all sites
• Drupal 7 release has Semantic Web support built-in
• RDFa (SIOC, FOAF, Dublin Core, SKOS) data for blog
posts, forums, etc.
• Video at www.semantic-drupal.com

image from tinyurl.com/drupaper

How much SIOC data is out there?

images (this one and later backgrounds) from publicdomainpictures.net

Sindice 2012: classes

• Total instances of SIOC classes: 7.7M
– Up 200k in three months
• Most occurences: sioc:Item (2.2M)
– Followed by:
• UserAccount (1.6M), MicroblogPost (1.3M), Post (800k),
User (700k), Comment (400k)...
– Note: 1 billion foaf:Person instances!!!
• Used on most [distinct] sites:
– Item (7k), UserAccount (7k), Post (3k)...

Sindice 2012: predicates

• Total instances of SIOC predicates: 22.5M
– Up 400k in three months
• Most occurences: sioc:follows (4.6M)
– Followed by:
• topic (4M), account_of (3.5M), has_creator (2.7M),
links_to (1.5M), has_discussion (1.3M)...
• Used on most [distinct] sites:
– has_creator (8k), num_replies (7k), name (2k),
account_of (1.5k), reply_of (1.5k)...

Sindice 2012: namespaces

• SIOC data is being generated from 10k distinct domains
(2k SLDs) (plus 2k domains for the SIOC Types
module)
– Increasing by about 100 domains a month
– No doubt helped by Drupal!
• FOAF data is being generated from 3M distinct domains
(100k SLDs)
– Increasing by over 1000 domains a month

CommonCrawl

• Muehleisen andBizer • Results published on
– LDOW @ WWW 2012 Monday 2 July 2012
• 1.5 billion web pages at:
• 3 billion RDF quads • webdatacommons.org
/vocabulary-usage-
• SIOC available from analysis/index.html
at least 22k PLDs
(pay-level domains)
• FOAF on 27k PLDs

Tagging issues

• Tagging enables user-generated classification of
content with evolving and user-driven vocabularies
• But it also raises various issues:
– Tag ambiguity:
• “apple” = fruit or computer brand?
– Tag heterogeneity:
• “socialmedia”, “social_media”, “socmed”
– Lack of organisation:
• No links between tags, e.g. “SPARQL” and “RDF”

The Tag Ontology

• The “Tag Ontology” by Newman from 2005:
– http://www.holygoat.co.uk/projects/tags/
– Based on Gruber’s tag model
– tags:Tag rdfs:subClassOf skos:Concept
– A “Tagging” class describing relationships between:
• A user
• An annotated resource
• Some tags

MOAT

• MOAT (Meaning Of A Tag):
– http://moat-project.org/
– A model to define “meanings” of tags
– e.g. SPARQL →http://dbpedia.org/resource/SPARQL
– User-driven interlinking
– Tagged content enters the “Linked Data” web
– Collaborative approach to share meanings in a
community

Tagging process with MOAT and DBpedia

Unifying collaborations

Some more semantically-enhanced systems, with
enterprise applicability

Sample output from a SMW query

Linking IRC to the Web of Data

Semantic #tagging

• User-driven interlinking
• Real-time URIs are
suggested when writing
content
• Added ability to add new
webservices (e.g.
enterprise microblogging
with contextual
semantics)

An ontology stack for social semantic
collaborative spaces

Semantic Enterprise 2.0

Enterprise 2.0 goes semantic

Enterprise 2.0

• Web 2.0 includes applications such as blogs, wikis, RSS
feeds and social networking, while Enterprise 2.0 is the
packaging of those technologies in both corporate
IT and workplace environments:
– Corporate blogging, wikis, microblogging
– Social networking within organisations, etc.
• “Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software
platforms within companies, or between companies
and their partners or customers” - McAfee, MIT Sloan,
2006

Enterprise 2.0 and the Web

• Many enterprises have an online presence on various
Web 2.0 services to reach their customers:
– Twitter
– Slideshare
– Facebook
– Flickr
– LinkedIn
– etc.

The SLATES acronym

• Search: Easy and relevant access to information
• Links: Enable better browsing capabilities between
content
• Authoring: Easy interfaces to produce content, in a
collaborative way
• Tagging: User-generated classification, enables
serendipity and knowledge discovery
• Extension: Recommendation of relevant content
• Signals: Identify relevant content

Social aspects of Enterprise 2.0

• Enterprise 2.0 introduces new paradigms in
organisations with regards to knowledge sharing and
communication patterns:
– Enterprise 2.0 is a philosophy
• Enterprise 2.0’s success depends on a company’s
background:
– A study by AIIM showed that 41% of companies do
not have a clear understanding of what Enterprise
2.0 is, while this percentage goes down to 15% in
KM-oriented companies.

Keys to Enterprise 2.0 adoption

• Combining top-down and bottom-up approaches helps
to realise Enterprise 2.0:
– Top-down: Hierarchy (bosses!) sets up new tools and
requires that various sections use them
– Bottom-up: Users become evangelists and word-of-
mouth improves the number of new users

Business metrics for Enterprise 2.0

• 13% of the Fortune 500 companies have a public blog
maintained by their employees
• Forrester Research predicts a global market for
Enterprise 2.0 solutions of 4.6 billion dollars by 2013,
and according to Gartner, more social computing
platforms will be adopted by companies in next 10 years
• Lots of companies and products in this space:
– Awareness, Mentor Scout, SelectMinds,
introNetworks, Jive Software, Visible Path, Web
Crossing, SocialText, etc.

Open-source applications

• Open-source Web 2.0 apps can be efficiently used in
organisations to build Enterprise 2.0 ecosystems:
– Blogging: WordPress, etc.
– Wikis: MediaWiki, MoinMoin, etc.
– RSS readers and APIs: MagpieRSS, etc.
– Integrated CMSs: Drupal, etc.

Information fragmentation issues

• Heterogeneity of people, services, needs and practices
leads to various services and tools being deployed
• By using various services (blogs, wikis, etc.),
information about a particular object (e.g. a project) is
fragmented over a company’s network:
– Getting a global picture is difficult
• Applications act as independent data silos, with different
APIs, different data formats, etc.:
– Data integration can be a costly task

Lack of machine-readable data and tagging
issues

• Enterprise 2.0 enables and encourages people to
provide valuable content inside organisations:
– However, information is complex to re-use, generally
remains locked inside services, and is for human-
consumption only
• Some queries cannot be answered automatically:
– “List all the US-based companies involved in
sustainable energies”
– Plus there’s the aforementioned issue with tagging

Semantic Web in enterprises

• Semantic Web technologies are already widely used in
organisations:
– Ontology-based information management
– Semantic middleware between databases
– Intelligent portals
– etc.
• Semantic Web Education and Outreach (W3C):
– http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/public/UseCases/
– NASA, Lilly, Oracle, Yahoo!, etc.

A Semantic Enterprise 2.0 architecture

• Lightweight add-ons to existing applications to provide
RDF data:
– Exporters, wrappers, dedicated scripts, etc.
– Taking into account the social aspect (e.g. semantic
wikis)
• Models to give meaning to this RDF data:
– Domain ontologies, taxonomies, etc.
• Applications on the top of it:
– Thanks to RDF(S)/OWL and SPARQL

The RDF Bus approach

• RDF Bus architecture (Tim
Berners-Lee):
– Add-ons to produce RDF data
from existing Web 2.0 applications

• Store distributed data using
RDF stores
• Create new applications:
– Semantic mashups
– Semantic search

• Open architecture thanks to a
SPARQL endpoint, services as
plugins to the architecture

Relational DB to RDF mapping

• Relational data (RDB) is structured data and can be
mapped to RDF straightforward:
– Allows integration of existing enterprise databases
into the Semantic Enterprise 2.0 architecture
• Main issues include: closed-world vs. open-world
modeling; assigning URIs for entities (records); mapping
language expressivity
• For a state-of-the-art see
http://www.w3.org/2005/Incubator/rdbrdf/RDB2RDF_Sur
veyReport.pdf

LOD and Semantic Enterprise 2.0

• Huge potential for internal IT infrastructures to enhance
existing applications (mashups, extended UIs, etc.):
– Integration of open and structured data from various
sources at minor cost
• Issue: dependance on external services, replication may
be required
• RSS is already widely used in organisations as a way to
get information from the Web, LOD provides
structured data to extend IT ecosystems

Semantic Enterprise 2.0 use cases

• Electricité De France R&D:
– Integration of Enterprise 2.0 components using
lightweight semantics
• Ecospace EU project:
– Interoperability of collaborative work environments
• Boeing inSite:
– Uses SIOC, FOAF and other social web standards to
reduce time and effort spent finding and sharing

Use case: CWE interoperability

private folders
BC semantic folder

BSCW
shadow
folder

SPARQL+XMPP+spreading activation for
linking enterprise collaborations (Cisco)

Using PPO/PPM to access Linked
(Enterprise) Data

Aggregated, interoperable and multi-
platform user profiles

Summary

• Object-centred sociality refers to how we really use
social spaces:
– Can use semantics to describe this usage, by
representing objects for linkage and reuse
• Applicability in the enterprise for collaboration platforms
• Describe people, networks, content, presence,
knowledge, tags, etc. with semantics
• Providing solutions for novel uses in organisations:
– Not just for the Social Web, but for Enterprise 2.0

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to my colleagues in the Unit for Social Software
(USS) at DERI, especially for their slides!

• We appreciate the support of Science Foundation
Ireland and the Irish Research Council

image from tinyurl.com/starshiptr

Our book…

…at Amazon.com

Breaking Down Walls in Enterprise with Social Semantics

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