Schema Interoperability
Liam Magee
Global Cities Institute
RMIT University
Melbourne, Australia
Background
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ARC involving RMIT, FujiXerox Australia, Common Ground
Publishing
“The impact of the Semantic Web on Document Management
and Print Industries”
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3 years – 2006 – 2009
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Focus on:
– Standards and interoperability in publishing supply chain
– Evolving business models
– Challenges of customer engagement
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PhD (part of project):
– “The Commensurability of Semantic Web Ontologies”
The Semantic Web
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Proposal for interconnected “web of data”
– Began circa 1998
– Facts in formal, logic-based languages
– Related to XML, relational databases; also AI research
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Built on formal semantics, existing WWW infrastructure:
– Inferences over one or many “ontologies” (formal schemas)
– Necessary and sufficient conditions for class membership
– URI's as global unique naming scheme
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But:
– Complex to use in practice
– Simpler approaches available
– Problem of conflicting “paradigms” or “perspectives”
Semantic Web – Linked Data
Schemas as Perspectives...
• Thesis: developed framework and software
– To discover background (tacit) knowledge
– Applied social science methods to examine: what
perspectives underpin schemas?
– How to discover this for any schema?
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Look at online sources: debates in forums, mailing lists
Examine cultures...
Schemas treated as cultural artefacts
Trying to discover underlying conceptual paradigms
– Framework, software: apparatus for doing this...
Schemas as Perspectives...
Commensurability of Schemas
• Schemas, standards interoperability depend
on context - no silver bullet solutions
• Schema matching algorithms available
• Translation of schema meanings:
– Interpretating schema terms, concepts
– Understanding background cultures
– Analysing purpose, context of translation
• So frameworks can supplement:
– Help evaluate feasibility, cost, scope of work
Schema Translation Scenario
Translator
Problem for
Translation
Context of
Translation
Estimate of work
Culture
Schema 1
Culture
Degree of Commensurability
Schema 2
Results so far...
• Challenges with constructing standards
– Rival standards:
• case study on document formats
– Microsoft and the world: OOXML vs ODF)
– Clearly vested economic, political interests on both sides
– Other reasons:
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Methodological: different approaches to classifying...
Teleological: different purposes to classifying...
Operational: different uses of classifications, data...
Semantic: different terminologies, “language games”
Theoretical: differing paradigms, perspectives
Community Sector Example
• “Service” paradigm:
• Service provider
• Client
• Client relationship
• “Community development” paradigm:
• Facilitator
• Community
• Community engagement relationship
• Not always interchangeable:
– reflect different underlying commitments, practices,
vocabularies
More schemas – about schemas
– Cultural context is helpful – but leads to endless
interpretation?
– Useful to develop taxonomies about schemas:
• How are schemas developed? What methods are used?
(Process)
• What motivates their development? (Purpose)
• How are they used? (Practice)
• What underlying theories are used? (Perspective)
– Accompanying methods, analytic tools, software
– Framework designed as “practioner's guide” to help
match schemas – pragmatic, heuristic, “guiding”
emphasis
Some Notes on Interoperability...
• Dialogue, “principle of charity”
• Costly: requires workshops, committees, time
• “Minimax” strategy: minimal interoperability
for maximal benefit
• “Orthogonality”: different perspectives around
common, consensual semantic core
• Standardisation, interoperability: foster and
restrain organisational innovation
Cycles of Standardisation /
Differentiation
• Initial differentiation:
– time, cost constraints, lack of awareness of other
schemas
• Drive towards standardisation:
– sharing information, improved queries / reporting,
consolidated client histories
• New drives towards differentiation:
– failed interoperability efforts; new, incompatible systems;
new operating environments, classificatory schemes
• History of document formats good example
Contra Interoperability
• Loss of “local” representations of meaning
• Conflicting interests
• Trust
• Legality
• Lack of flexibility
• Inhibits innovation
• Interoperability not end in itself – subject to intraand inter-organisational rationales
• Criteria, toolkit useful for assessing pros and cons of
interoperability
• Thank you...