Ontology Outreach Advisory

The W3C Media Annotations Working Group has published Working Drafts of Ontology for Media Resource 1.0 and API for Media Resource 1.0. The former document defines the Ontology for Media Resource 1.0, a core vocabulary to describe media resources on the Web. It is defined based on a core set of properties which covers basic metadata to describe media resources. Further it defines syntactic and semantic level mappings between elements from existing formats. The ontology is supposed to foster the interoperability among various kinds of metadata formats currently used to describe media resources on the Web. The latter defines a client-side API to access metadata information related to media resources on the Web.

During the implementation phase of the Rule Interchange Format (RIF), the Working Group discovered a problem with the design of the Production Rules Dialect. This problem is addressed with a new Last Call Working Draft that changes the way actions are handled to more closely match existing production rule engines. Please send comments and RIF implementation reports to public-rif-comments@w3.org.

A few weeks ago W3C announced the organization of an "RDF Next Steps" Workshop. At the time of the announcement the dates and the place of the Workshop were not settled yet.

They are now... The Workshop will indeed take place on the 26 and 27 of June, 2010, and hosted by the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO), at Stanford University. Note that those dates are on the week-end after the SemTech2010 conference, held nearby in San Francisco.

The call for paper of the Workshop has been updated, and also includes details on the way of submitting position papers.

The W3C SPARQL Working Group has published a First Public Working Draft of SPARQL 1.1 Property Paths, which defines a more succinct way to write parts of basic graph patterns and also extend matching of triple pattern to arbitrary length paths. The group also published six updates, namely:

• SPARQL 1.1 Query adds support for aggregates, subqueries, projected expressions, and negation to the SPARQL query language.
• SPARQL 1.1 Update defines an update language for RDF graphs.
• SPARQL 1.1 Protocol for RDF defines an abstract interface and HTTP bindings for a protocol to issue SPARQL Query and SPARQL Update statements against a SPARQL endpoint.
• SPARQL 1.1 Service Description defines a vocabulary and discovery mechanism for describing the capabilities of a SPARQL endpoint.
• SPARQL 1.1 Uniform HTTP Protocol for Managing RDF Graphs describes the use of the HTTP protocol for managing named RDF graphs on an HTTP server.
• SPARQL 1.1 Entailment Regimes defines conditions under which SPARQL queries can be used with entailment regimes such as RDF, RDF Schema, OWL, or RIF.

W3C is organizing a Workshop on the Next Steps for RDF around June 2010; we will announce the exact dates and location as soon as possible.

Since its publication in 2004, the Resource Description Framework (RDF) has become the core architectural block of the Semantic Web. The standard is now widely deployed in terms of tools and applications. Due to this wide deployment, additional R&D activities, and the publication of newer standards (e.g., SPARQL, OWL, POWDER, and SKOS), a number of issues regarding RDF have come to the fore. Workshop articipants will discuss these issues and help determine whether it is time for a new version of RDF. W3C Membership is not required to participate in the Workshop, but each participant must be associated with an accepted position paper. The deadline for position papers is 29 March 2010; see the Call for Participation for more information.

Updates (including the exact date and location of the Workshop) will be added to the Call for Participation and will be announced on the Semantic Web Activity News Blog.

A new public wiki site has been set up at W3C, nicknamed “Semantic Web Standards Wiki” or SWSWiki. It is not the goal of this wiki to supersede other community wikis like Semanticweb.org or OWLED Wiki; instead it is to provide a “first stop” for more information on Semantic Web technologies, in particular on Semantic Web Standards published by the W3C. Communities around such standards are also welcome to use the Wiki for their purpose; as an example, and thanks to Antoine Isaac, the SKOS community has already begun creating its own specific pages. Essentially, the role of this Wiki is to be an alternative (and, at some point in the future, maybe a replacement) to the ESW Wiki at W3C, but concentrating on Semantic Web only and using Semantic Media Wiki as an underlying technology.

Some pages from the ESW wiki have already been copied to ESWWiki. For example, the old book list has been copied to SWSWiki Book page. The old ESW list of tools, as well as some related pages like the Commercial Product have also been copied; however, and in contrast to the book list, this was not simply a copy of the pages but a new structure was also created, making use of the possibilities of Semantic Media Wiki. As a result, each tool has its own, separate page (produced by a template) and different types of searches can be performed on the tool list to find the ones usable from, say, Python and relevant to OWL development. See the new tools‘ list for further details and the contributors‘ page if you also want to contribute. (No major change on the content of the tool descriptions have been made during this copy, although, in some cases, different texts referring to the same tool have been merged. Apologies if some mistakes have been made along the line.) Each tool also gained an automatic RDF description, thanks again to the possibilities offered by the Semantic Media Wiki.

This is an evolving Wiki. Evolving, meaning that new pages and new features will be added as time goes by; and Wiki, meaning that it relies on community contributions. Anybody having a W3C account (member or public) can and is welcome to contribute to the pages. General comments are also welcome (best is to send them to the Semantic Web Activity Lead, Ivan Herman, or discuss it on the SW IG).

W3C has published a set of URI-s to uniquely identify OWL 2 Profiles. These URI-s are needed for the upcoming SPARQL specification, but their usage can be more general and not bound to specific technologies.

The URI-s for the OWL 2 Profiles are:

• OWL 2 DL: http://www.w3.org/ns/owl-profile/DL
• OWL 2 EL: http://www.w3.org/ns/owl-profile/EL
• OWL 2 QL: http://www.w3.org/ns/owl-profile/QL
• OWL 2 RL: http://www.w3.org/ns/owl-profile/RL

Each of these URI-s can return, depending on content negotiations, XHTML+RDFa, RDF/XML, or Turtle content; the URI-s above with html, rdf, or ttl suffixes, respectively, can also be used to get to those versions directly.

W3C has published a set of URI-s to uniquely identify Semantic Web entailment regimes. These URI-s are needed for the upcoming SPARQL and RIF specifications, but their usage can be more general and not bound to specific technologies.

The URI-s for the various entailment regimes are:

• Simple Entailment: http://www.w3.org/ns/entailment/Simple
• RDF Entailment: http://www.w3.org/ns/entailment/RDF
• RDFS Entailment: http://www.w3.org/ns/entailment/RDFS
• D Entailment: http://www.w3.org/ns/entailment/D
• OWL Entailment with Direct Semantics: http://www.w3.org/ns/entailment/OWL-Direct
• OWL Entailment with RDF Based Semantics: http://www.w3.org/ns/entailment/OWL-RDF-Based
• RIF Entailment: http://www.w3.org/ns/entailment/RIF

Each of these URI-s can return, depending on content negotiations, XHTML+RDFa, RDF/XML, or Turtle content; the URI-s above with html, rdf, or ttl suffixes, respectively, can also be used to get to those versions directly.

The W3C Evaluation and Repair Tools Working Group (ERT WG) has published new or updated a number of RDF vocabularies that are part of the Evaluation and Report Language (EARL). These working drafts include:

• Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) 1.0
• HTTP Vocabulary in RDF 1.0
• Representing Content in RDF 1.0
• Pointer Methods in RDF 1.0

See also the Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) 1.0 Guide.

EARL provides a format for expressing test results, such as those generated by Web accessibility evaluation tools, using a vendor-neutral and platform-independent format. While the review period has ended, ERT WG encourages you to review EARL 1.0 documents and submit any comments. See Call for Review: EARL 1.0 Last Call Working Draft e-mail for more information.

Making Data Standards Work:
A Detailed Look at Pre-hire to Post-hire HR Systems Integration

Join us for an exclusive pre-conference session with ADP’s CTO of Information Architecture, Steffen Fohn and ADP’s Senior Director of Development, Mike Cataldo on Monday, October 13 from 8:00 am to 10:45 am. You will receive valuable insight on how to solve integration challenges with external customers and vendor data trading partners. You will benefit from the advice of Paul Kiel, President, XML Helpline and Brad Harris, CEO, Harris Echternach Solutions Corporation on best practices of using data standards and data governance.

For details on the pre-conference, visit: Summit Pre-conference.

This is a great opportunity to get practical demonstrations on using HR-XML standards to optimize HR processes in the context of real business scenarios.

This pre-conference session is available to you for a small fee along with your Summit registration.

Get the most out of your attendance with the opportunity to network with fellow professionals and gain critical business insight from one of the most prominent leaders in the HR services space.

To register, visit Summit Registration or contact us at summit@hr-xml.org.

Don’t miss this important update on the forthcoming HR-XML 3.0 release.

HR-XML 3.0 Preview: A Next Generation in Standards for HR Services
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM EDT
(10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PDT)

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/pjoin/953322662/105292616

The HR-XML 3.0 candidate release will soon be available. What can you expect?

As many already know, HR-XML 3.0 is the first major re-architecture of the HR-XML library since 2002. The re-architecture brings together the many contributions from the industry over the past 9 years under a consistent and uniform architecture.

HR-XML 3.0 is designed from the ground-upon to maximize interoperability. It is the first vertical industry standard that is designed as a “plug-in” to the Open Applications Group Integration Specification (OAGIS). OAGIS is the world’s most widely implemented horizontal business language, covering such functions as manufacturing to purchasing, order management, billing, shipping, and financials.

Register today for this free webinar to learn how you can benefit from this next generation in HR business language standards.

For those that missed our most recent webinar, you can find a recording embedded below. Some of the video qualityisn’t great, but the sound is quite clear.

As the Webinar explains, HR-XML’s forthcoming Version 3.0 release is informed by almost 10 years of industry contributions and is architecturally more consistent and robust than ever before. However, the breadth of the 3.0 library and the options available therein, pose their own challenges to implementers. What we hope to achieve with a new testing platform is not only to provide a way for implementers to test against the base HR-XML schemas, but to test against implementation profiles. In the Webinar, I mention various implementation patterns using HR-XML screening specifications. You can find those patterns discussed in HR-XML 3.0 draft screening implementation guidelines and a “simple screening order” profile. As the documentation explains, HR-XML’s Screening specifications are designed to support three different implementation patterns: “order by package identifier”; “a la carte”; and “order by package, plus.” There are many implementers that just use the simple order and fulfillment pattern (order by package ID) while others use all three patterns based on the requirements of particular trading partners and customers. As explained in the Webinar, using the PilotFish platform and open technologies, such as XPATH and Schematron, we will be able to set up an easy way for implementers to test against specific implementation profiles and business rules beyond the constraints set by the HR-XML schemas. Testing against such profiles might be as easy as addressing an email with a message attachment or could be accomplished by submitting the XML via a SOAP/http web service or even FTP.

You should expect to see further demonstrations of these profile testing approaches as the HR-XML 3.0 candidate release nears completion.

The Global Partnering and Integration Summit’s early bird registration ends July 31, so Register Today to save up to $150.

The Summit is being held at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Chicago on October 13-14, 2008.

The HR Technology® Conference is located in Chicago immediately following HR-XML’s Global Partnering & Integration Summit. The two complementary conferences have partnered to make it easy for you.

1. Register for the Global Partnering & Integration Summit to save almost 30% off the regular rate.
2. Receive e-mail confirmation with promotional code.
3. Register for the HR Technology® conference using the promotional code to receive the $550 discount.
4. Book your room at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. Mention that you are attending the summit to receive the hotel discount.

The agenda covers critical business topics such as the panel “Partnership Essentials: The Principles of Strong Alliances”.

“The majority of strategic alliances end up being a press release, a logo swap, and no contribution to the bottom line. Yet, formal relationships between and among businesses have many benefits, including:

• Yielding a differentiated competitive advantage
• Completing an organization’s offering to fulfill an “end-to-end solution” as defined by buyer community
• Providing sales channel distribution (reseller relationships)
• Gaining intelligence on actions of competitors
• Increasing overall customer satisfaction
• Reducing operating costs

Join us for an industry ‘panel of peers’ where we will have a candid discussion of the underlying principles and activities that make alliances successful. We will explore a variety of topics, including types of alliances, stages of development/maturity, managing channel conflict, the contract negotiation process, and identification of common pitfalls/mistakes.”

For more session topics, visit our online program.

We would also like to thank the support of our 2008 Summit Sponsors:

Executive Industry Event Partner
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Gold Sponsors
Sovren Group provides global enterprise-class multi-lingual parsing and semantic matching solutions (Resumes/CVs/Job Descriptions).

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Keynote Sponsor
Lawson Strategic HCM delivers transformational tools designed to help link together people, strategy, and execution.

To register or for more information on sponsoring, exhibiting, or advertising, visit www.partneringsummit.org.