1 SICoP Special Briefing Federal Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) August 9, 2007 (Updated August 13 and 23, 2007) For Mr. Michael

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SICoP Special Briefing

Federal Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP)August 9, 2007 (Updated August 13 and 23, 2007)For Mr. Michael KriegerDirector Information PolicyOSD, DoD CIO

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Overview

SICoP provided a set of briefing slides for the August 9th meeting (Sections 1-4).

SICoP addressed the issues raised in the August 9th briefing by supplementing the slides on August 13th with notes (Section 5).

SICoP had an extensive email discussion which the SICoP Co-chairs compiled and distilled in the Summary Points on August 23rd (see next three slides).

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Summary Points

The leadership of the DoD CoI (Mike Todd) and SICoP (Brand Niemann) worked together on the FEA/OMB DRM 2.0 - The DoD CoI was featured as a best practice for information sharing in a CoI and SICoP led the DRM 2.0 Implementation Through Testing and Iteration Work Group.

The DoD CoI and SICoP continue to interact in the DoD CoI Quarterly Meetings and through those with joint membership like Jim Schoening who leads the SICoP Cross-Domain Semantic Interoperability WG (CDSI WG) that produced a white paper that was discussed in the press and gave rise to the August 9th briefing for Mr. Krieger and his MITRE staff.

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Summary Points DoD is using semantic technologies and standards, and

the recent DoD CoI Quarterly Meeting on July 31st featured two presentations of that (David Hanz, SRI, and Mary Parmelle, MITRE).

The SICoP members participating in the August 9th briefing came away with a range of impressions of the DoD CoI leadership from (1) DoD and the IC are about 3 - 5 years behind where we are and we're pulling away fast, to (2) we need to take the time to understand their use case for semantic technology and focus our discussion on how semantic technology can be used to support their mission. All the SICoP participants came away with the desire to work on how to "get DoD leadership moving in the right direction" at the upcoming NCOIC Plenary and WG Meetings September 17-21st, and the Metatopia Conference, November 5-7th.

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Summary Points The SICoP and NCIOC SIF WG activities are about

adding value to and reusing the DoD and DoD CoI net-centric information sharing work, not about critcizing, disrupting, or replacing it - we are two communities trying to better understand each other and help one another to achieve a common purpose - semantic interoperability in information sharing.

SICoP would like to see the DoD CoI Leadership and MITRE staff review and comment on the individual SICoP member presentations on August 9th, and especially the white papers from GSA, and give SICoP members the opportunity to present our work in the DoD CoI Quarterly meetings and/or invite the DoD CoI members to the SICoP and SOA CoP meetings.

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Agenda

1. Introductions: Host 2. Introductions: SICoP 3. SICoP: Brief Summaries 4. Discussion 5. Post-briefing Notes

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1. Introductions: Host

Michael Krieger Clay Robinson Frank Petroski, MITRE Glenda Hayes, MITRE

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2. Introductions: SICoP

Brand Niemann, Senior Enterprise Architect, USEPA, and SICoP Co-Chair

Rick Murphy, Senior Enterprise Architect, GSA

Mills Davis, Managing Director, Project10X, and SICoP Co-Chair

Lucian Russell, Private Consultant

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2. Introductions: SICoP

Denise Bedford, Enterprise Architect, World Bank, World Bank, and Georgetown University, Kent State University, University of Tennessee Facility

Mike Lang, Founder, Revelytix Todd Schneider, Raytheon, and

NCOIC

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3. SICoP: Brief Summaries

A. SICoP Overview: Brand Niemann B. SICoP White Paper 1 and GSA Activities:

Rick Murphy C. SICoP White Paper 2: Mills Davis D. SICoP White Paper 3: Lucian Russell E. Framework for Achieving and Managing

Interoperability: Denise Bedford F. Semantic Wiki and New OS/NII Project:

Michael Lang G. NCIOC Semantic Interoperability WG:

Todd Schneider

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3.A. SICoP Overview

SICoP was charted under the Best Practices Committee of the Federal CIO Council in March 2003 and has delivered three white papers and produced eleven conferences.

SICoP led the OMB/FEA DRM 2.0 Implementation Team.

SICoP has given Special Recognitions (35) that document the progress along the Spectrum of Reasoning and Applications.

SICoP actively participates in DoD CoI, W3C, Semantic Technology, NCOIC, etc. work groups and conferences.

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3.A. SICoP Overview

SICoP Has Three White Papers: Introducing Semantic Technologies and the Vision of the

Semantic Web: W3C Semantic Web and DARPA DAML Program/SICoP Semantic

Web Applications for National Security (SWANS) Conference April 2005 (40 exhibits)

Semantic Wave 2006 - Executive Guide to the Business Value of Semantic Technologies: 2006 Semantic Technology Conference. Updated at 2007

Conference. Operationalizing the Semantic Web/Semantic Technologies: A

roadmap for agencies on how they can take advantage of semantic technologies and begin to develop Semantic Web implementations (recently released for public review): Advanced Intelligence Community R&D Meets the Semantic Web

(ARDA AQUAINT Program).

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3.B. SICoP White Paper 1 and GSA Activities

Lessons Learned in Core-Based Information Sharing (2004-2007): After two rounds of

investment in core- based approach … Assumptions that didn’t pan out for us … Adequate mainstream

technology set available. Sustainable labor cost at

scale. Manage consistency

through convention.

Log Common

Core C2 Common Core

ISR Comm

on

Core

Business Common Core

EIE

Com

mon

Cor

e Universal Core

COI Extensions

DoD Component and IC Member Extensions

Fact: Fact: XML-based technologies can’t represent semantics.Fact: OMG can’t field QVT to achieve core capabilities.Fact: Short supply of folks with adequate background in information theory.

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Early Stage 1 – Language composition with description logics: 3rd pilot (current), production (2-5) years. Tomorrow’s tools are open source today. Sustainable core with manageable labor costs at

scale: Knowledge standardized and externalized v.

XML/UML. Consistency and satisfy-ability (guaranteed) by

construction through automated reasoning services. Extended unification and alignment (mapping)

approach. Shared concept (remedial) v. categories.owl (semiotics)

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Remaining stages …: Later stage 1 - (4 – 7) years:

IF-Map derived incremental unification and alignment. Testing Chu space transforms and end-to-end

translation. Barriers: Knowledge transfer.

Stage 2, 3 & 4 (6 – 20) years Composition and refinement of algebraic

specifications. Additional reasoning services (unification, resolution,

gmp). Non-monotonic logics and Institutions. Barriers: Retooling investment, Semantic Web

resistance.

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For more information …Please read our papers: Roadmap for Semantics in Net-centric Enterpris

e Architecture Information Flow in the Federal Enterprise

Redux: Governing Federations, Sharing Information and Ensuring Privacy

Perspectives on a Unifying Framework for the Federal Enterprise

… our stuff is open source, let’s share …

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3.C. SICoP White Paper 2

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Education: Metaland — Web 3.0 semantic wiki

magazine: http://metaland.visualknowledge.com/

Metatopia — DAMA NCR Chapter Conference, November 5-7, 2007: http://www.wilshireconferences.com/metatopia/

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3.D. SICoP White Paper 3 The Data Reference Model (DRM) Version

2.0 had three components, Data Description, Data Context and Data Sharing.

It pushed details to Communities of Interest because they “knew best”.

It encapsulates but does not solve all pre-2006 problems with data representation and sharing.

In 2006 several Computer Science breakthroughs occurred which made DRM 2.0 obsolete: DRM 3.0 will have only two sections.

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3.D. SICoP White Paper 3

English was ambiguous and could not be made otherwise

Verbs describing processes could not be described

Schemas, XML etc. were near useless

English has been disambiguated and exact descriptions can now be created

Formal descriptions of Verbs’ processes are possible and unique

Schemas can be made usable

New Computer Science Breakthroughs

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Failure Points Can Be Addressed: COIs work can be made useful provided the

exact semantics of their work products are specified exactly

Schemas need to be accompanied by exact English descriptions of their meaning, but if so can be useful

Knowledge Bases can now be built …. But: you cannot use 1960-70s methods to do

this, nor just XML! You also need better contractor support, some A-team members.

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3.D. SICoP White Paper 3# Semantic Relation Abbr

1 POSSESSION POS2 KINSHIP KIN3 PROPERTY-ATTRIBUTE HOLDER PAH4 AGENT AGT5 TEMPORAL TMP6 DEPICTION DPC7 PART-WHOLE PW8 HYPONYMY ISA9 ENTAIL ENT

10 CAUSE CAU11 MAKE-PRODUCE MAK12 INSTRUMENT INS13 LOCATION-SPACE LOC14 PURPOSE PRP15 SOURCE-FROM SRC16 TOPIC TPC17 MANNER MNR18 MEANS MNS19 ACCOMPANIMENT-COMPANION ACC20 EXPERIENCER EXP

# Semantic Relation Abbr

21 RECIPIENT REC22 FREQUENCY FRQ23 INFLUENCE IFL24 ASSOCIATED-WITH / OTHER OTH25 MEASURE MEA26 SYNONYMY-NAME SYN27 ANTONYMY ANT

28 PROBABILITY-OF-EXISTENCE PRB

29 POSSIBILITY PSB30 CERTAINTY CRT31 THEME-PATIENT THM32 RESULT RSL33 STIMULUS STI34 EXTENT EXT35 PREDICATE PRD36 BELIEF BLF37 GOAL GOL38 MEANING MNG39 JUSTIFICATION JST40 EXPLANATION EXN

LCC’s Polaris Semantic Relations

24Cycorp © 2006

ThingThing

IntangibleThingIntangibleThing IndividualIndividual

TemporalThingTemporalThing

SpatialThingSpatialThing

PartiallyTangibleThing

PartiallyTangibleThing

PathsPaths

SetsRelationsSetsRelations

LogicMathLogicMath

HumanArtifactsHumanArtifacts

SocialRelations,Culture

SocialRelations,Culture

HumanAnatomy &Physiology

HumanAnatomy &Physiology

EmotionPerceptionBelief

EmotionPerceptionBelief

HumanBehavior &Actions

HumanBehavior &Actions

ProductsDevicesProductsDevices

ConceptualWorksConceptualWorks

VehiclesBuildingsWeapons

VehiclesBuildingsWeapons

Mechanical& ElectricalDevices

Mechanical& ElectricalDevices

SoftwareLiteratureWorks of Art

SoftwareLiteratureWorks of Art

LanguageLanguage

AgentOrganizationsAgentOrganizations

OrganizationalActionsOrganizationalActions

OrganizationalPlansOrganizationalPlans

Types ofOrganizationsTypes ofOrganizations

HumanOrganizationsHumanOrganizations

NationsGovernmentsGeo-Politics

NationsGovernmentsGeo-Politics

Business, MilitaryOrganizations

Business, MilitaryOrganizations

LawLaw

Business &CommerceBusiness &Commerce

PoliticsWarfarePoliticsWarfare

ProfessionsOccupationsProfessionsOccupations

PurchasingShoppingPurchasingShopping

TravelCommunicationTravelCommunication

Transportation& LogisticsTransportation& Logistics

SocialActivitiesSocialActivities

EverydayLivingEverydayLiving

SportsRecreationEntertainment

SportsRecreationEntertainment

ArtifactsArtifacts

MovementMovement

State ChangeDynamicsState ChangeDynamics

MaterialsPartsStatics

MaterialsPartsStatics

PhysicalAgentsPhysicalAgents

BordersGeometryBordersGeometry

EventsScriptsEventsScripts

SpatialPathsSpatialPaths

ActorsActionsActorsActions

PlansGoalsPlansGoals

TimeTime

AgentsAgents

SpaceSpace

PhysicalObjectsPhysicalObjects

HumanBeingsHumanBeings

Organ-izationOrgan-ization

HumanActivitiesHumanActivities

LivingThingsLivingThings

SocialBehaviorSocialBehavior

LifeFormsLifeForms

AnimalsAnimals

PlantsPlants

EcologyEcology

NaturalGeographyNaturalGeography

Earth &Solar SystemEarth &Solar System

PoliticalGeographyPoliticalGeography

WeatherWeather

General Knowledge about Various DomainsGeneral Knowledge about Various Domains

Specific data, facts, and observationsSpecific data, facts, and observations


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3.E. Framework for Achieving and Managing Interoperability

Meeting the Interoperability Challenge: Critical success factor is to get ahead of the harmonization

problem Stop chasing and start managing the problem. Lack of direction and guidance at all levels of architecture leads to

lack of interoperability. Essential Components for Interoperability:

Core metadata (DoD has achieved this). Metadata semantics and specifications for each attribute. Guiding Principles at the attribute level. Participation of stakeholders. Defined governance roles and processes for attributes.

Metadata and semantics provide the framework that supports participation.

Participation, guiding principles and governance models provide the synchronization and agility that is necessary for a complex, dynamic and multi-disciplinary organization.

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Degrees of Interoperability: First degree -- core metadata set:

Identify the essential core set from what exists. Map and harmonize what exists. Implement new attributes. Design metadata architecture around core metadata. Define and publish specifications.

Second degree – manage values: Define guiding principles, policies and governance roles for

core metadata. Establish change management process for core and

institutional metadata. Establish and synchronize roles and responsibilities across

the organization – these can be flexible but bounded. Involve business owners, domain experts, ontologists,

taxonomists and metadata managers in appropriate roles. Whether you use a federated or centralized governance

model is less important than the lack/availability of a governance model.

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Degrees of Interoperability (continued): Third Degree -- converge application and service

development: Development has a metadata component – review is at the

attribute level. Ensure that all COIs and systems developers are building to

the same framework. Anchor development around an enterprise level metadata

dictionary. Involves continuous awareness raising and advocacy.

Fourth degree – automate and monitor values: Configure semantic technologies to support metadata. Embed ‘vocabularies’ into technologies. Shift CoI domain expertise to building and populating the

semantic tools. Leverage semantic technologies to support consistent

capture and population of the metadata values.

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Lessons Learned and Best Practices: Develop guiding principles and governance processes for

DoD core metadata attributes. Broaden the ‘ownership’ of governance by implementing a

governance process for each core attribute. Continue to leverage the CoI’s but clarify their roles in the

governance model. Implement a common and automated method of

generating ‘metacards’ across the agency. Ensure that you have a well defined and efficient

metadata architecture at the enterprise level. Implement semantic technologies (with embedded

integrated values) at the core metadata attribute level at the ‘metacard’ level.

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3.F. Semantic Wiki and New OS/NII Project

Architecture Federation Pilot: Army Chief Information Officer (CIO/G-6) Architecture Operations, Networks and

Space (AONS) Directorate, Army Architecture Integration Center (AAIC)

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Purpose: Portfolio management and investment

planning activities: The DoD EAC COP had previously

determined that a complex set of diverse information sources need to be tapped into and merged with the assets represented in architectures in order to support portfolio management.

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Purpose (continued): Integrate knowledge in support of investment

decision making by the following stakeholders: Joint Net-Centric Operations Capability Portfolio

Manager (JNO CPM). Joint Focused Logistics CPM. Joint Command & Control (JC2) CPM IT Portfolio

Managers at both DoD and Service levels. The Business Transformation Agency (BTA).

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Classification Ontology: Engage a COI to build an ontology that is suitable for

classifying the diverse collection of artifacts: Common service capabilities and their related definitions. An architectural model of a sub-set of currently deployed

Army tactical enterprise services, developed in DODAF constructs.

An architectural model of a sub-set of Army tactical enterprise services as planned for future deployment.

An architectural model of a sub-set of supporting DoD IT infrastructure.

An EXCEL spreadsheet containing a set of Army systems and related attributes.

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Semantic Wiki: A semantic wiki will be used to develop

the classification ontology: A Community of Interest will be formed on the

wiki. Stakeholders will collaborate over the

definition of the ontology. The ontology will be published to a repository.

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Repository: The ontology will be imported into a commercial

repository. All of the architectural/capability artifacts will be

imported into the repository. Semantic Mapping:

A semantic mapping tool will be used to match all of the artifacts to the semantically correct nodes in the ontology.

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Result: Having all of the artifacts related to the

ontology will facilitate the answering of the following kinds of questions: See next two slides.

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What are the capabilities and capability increments of interest?

What are the representative echelons of the federation: nodes and ”edges”?

For each echelon: What are the minimum and desired capabilities, and when are

these needed? What are the points of intersection/interfaces between echelons? Who are the providers (POR or otherwise) and consumers? What are the federation alternatives for each point of interface?

For each provider: What increment of a given capability does it offer and what

capacity does it have to serve consumers by FY? How much will this service cost to procure by FY? How much will this service cost to sustain by FY ?

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What dependencies does this service have on other providers by FY?

What is the ’interface’ (e.g. protocol) provided for federation with other providers to implement a given enterprise-wide capability?

For each ‘interface’: What is that interface’s dependence on lower-level

protocols? What are the QoS/transport/bandwidth dependencies? What are the rules for connecting to it? (e.g. information

assurance (IA) credentials?) What is the quality/accuracy/timeliness/consistency

specification for that interface (e.g. :”we will provide blue force locations that are no more than 5 minutes old within nearest 1000 meters.”)

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3.G. NCO Industry Consortium (NCOIC)

Mission: Facilitate global realization of the benefit inherent in Network Centric Operations.

We seek to enable continuously increasing levels of interoperability across the spectrum of joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational industrial and commercial operations. We will execute this mission in good faith as a global organization with membership open to all enterprises in quest of applying the vast potential of network centric technology to the operational challenges faced by our nations and their citizens.

Mission: Facilitate global realization of the benefit inherent in Network Centric Operations.

We seek to enable continuously increasing levels of interoperability across the spectrum of joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational industrial and commercial operations. We will execute this mission in good faith as a global organization with membership open to all enterprises in quest of applying the vast potential of network centric technology to the operational challenges faced by our nations and their citizens.

Primary tenets of the Consortium’s vision: Work to identify and develop a Network Centric environment Provide assured technical interoperability Embrace, enhance, and encourage open standards Establish and educate on common principles and processes

•Vision:Industry working together with our customers to provide a network centric environment where all classes of information systems interoperate by integrating existing and emerging open standards into a common evolving global framework that employs a common set of principles and processes.

•Vision:Industry working together with our customers to provide a network centric environment where all classes of information systems interoperate by integrating existing and emerging open standards into a common evolving global framework that employs a common set of principles and processes.

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3.G. NCOIC Interoperability Framework (NIF)

Basis for designing and building interoperable Network Centric Systems in diverse customer and supplier worldwide environment.

Organizes and structures core principles of Network Centric Operations such as connectivity, interoperability, security, discovery, and end-to-end Quality of Service.

Multiple working groups addressing different aspects of interoperability

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3.G. NCIOC Semantic Interoperability (SIF) WG

This wg will develop the NIF Semantic Interoperability (SIF) Framework, a sub-framework of the NCOIC NIF overarching framework. The SIF framework will include:

Development of an evolving technology and capability map of all the relevant concepts and technologies associated in this domain,

Development of a clear and unambiguous definition of semantic interoperability,

Identification and description of the impact that various levels of semantic interoperability have on networked operations,

Evolution of an overarching semantic interoperability model, Identification and taxonomic classification of the semantic

interoperability problems and examples of within various applications, Development of semantic interoperability principles and tenets, Identification and development of semantic interoperability architecture

patterns. Emerging technology concepts will also be discussed as to their scope

of problem solution and possibly their maturity level and related standards.

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3.G. NCOIC SIF Objectives

Develop a comprehensive understanding of the problems of semantic interoperability and define a semantic interoperability framework (SIF) where the scope and role of each problem can be illustrated and where problem specific architectural pattern solutions can be integrated (Services, Situational, and Knowledge Sharing domains)

Investigate and describe the use of semantic technologies and standards to create mutually consistent understanding shared of shared knowledge among different interoperable entities for different context situations

Define the role of the semantic interoperability framework (SIF) in an NCO environment

Develop NCO Capability Specific Semantic Interoperability Patterns

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4. Discussion

Upcoming Opportunities: September 11-12th, SOA Institute’s SOA

Conference: Federal SOA CoP (Federal Jump Start Kit:

Open Source/IONA FUSE Technologies). October 1-2nd, 4th SOA for E-Government

Conference at MITRE, McLean, VA: Federal SOA CoP (Multiple demos including

one of the FFATA use case).

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4. Discussion

Upcoming Opportunities: September 17-21st, NCOIC Plenary Session and

WG Sessions: Services Information Interoperability WG.

October 16th, NIST Net-Ready Sensor Standards Harmonization WG Meeting: SICoP: Modular Approach to SSHWG Ontology and

Demonstrations

November 5-7th, Metatopia Conference: Semantic Technology Track Being Organized

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4. Discussion

Do a hands-on vocabulary harmonization session following the October 16th COI Meeting?

Do an all-day Collaborative Expedition Workshop?

Do a SICoP Special Conference? A Third Conference has been planned.

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5. Post-briefing Notes

A. SICoP Overview: Brand Niemann Issue: I don’t understand who SICoP is

and what it does? Answer: I now understand who SICoP is and

think they do good work. Please followup with Clay Robinson.

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B. SICoP White Paper 1 and GSA Activities: Rick Murphy Issue: I don’t have a semantic technology

problem, but a syntax governance problem. Answer: Rick’s GSA group is 3-5 years ahead

in its thinking and work on this problem.

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C. SICoP White Paper 2: Mills Davis Issue: Was there one?

Answer: Our research and education activities can help you understand the broader picture.

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D. SICoP White Paper 3: Lucian Russell Issue: Registering XML Schemas in the

DoD Metadata Registry is all we need for semantic interoperability. Answer: XML Schemas in a registry to do not

solve the Semantic Interoperability problem.

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E. Framework for Achieving and Managing Interoperability: Denise Bedford Issue: Was there one?

Answer: This is the most important part of the briefing to help you.

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F. Semantic Wiki and New OS/NII Project: Michael Lang Issue: Who and what is this project for?

Answer: Mike Lang provided the details.

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G. NCIOC Semantic Interoperability WG: Todd Schneider Issue: NCOIC is just for the large

companies and has different problems than the DoD CoI. Answer: the NCOIC SII WG has a

cooperative agreement with SICoP to bring in the small, innovative companies, and has similar problems to the DoD CoI and wants to followup to explain more fully.

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General: Issue: We had a time management

problem. Answer: They had issues with most of what

we presented and asked a lot of questions. Issue: The last two presentations at their

DoD CoI meeting used ontologies and reasoning for semantic interoperability. Answer: Senior DoD management was

unable to stay to hear them and the subsequent discussion.

Documents

1 SICoP Special Briefing Federal Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) August 9, 2007 (Updated August 13 and 23, 2007) For Mr. Michael