NSF Support for Semantic Web Research

Frank OlkenNational Science Foundation

CISE/IIS

Presentation toInternational Semantic Web Conference

Athens, GA

Nov. 7, 2006

2006-11-06 F. Olken, NSF Funding of Semantic Web 2

Semantic Web Funding at NSF

NSF is routinely funding semantic web research proposals as part of its

normal research programs and solicitations.

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Semantic Web Proposals Funded by NSF (active awards)

25 awards= “semantic web” in title/abstract 92 awards = “semantic” and “web” in title/abstract 91 awards = “ontology” in title/abstract 16 awards = “ontology” in title only 48 awards = “semantic” in title only 280 awards = “semantic” in title/abstract

Some of these are traditional linguistics or programming language semantics

28 awards = “knowledge representation” in title/abstract Total IIS active awards = 1,000

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Funding of Semantic Web Proposals by NSF Divisions

CISE/IIS – DM, KM, IR, science informatics, ecoinformatics, AI, machine learning, ...

CISE/CCF -theory CISE/CNS – systems SBE/BCS – e.g., linguistics BIO/DBI – bioinformatics OCI – cyberinfrastructure

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Why does NSF care about semantic web technologies?

Formalization of scientific knowledge Facilitate sharing of scientific data Facilitate access to scientific data and knowledge Natural language processing (information extraction,

digital libraries, ...) Support for digital government (semantic rules

languages, disaster support, ...) Support for machine learning Support for math/science education

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Debates about support of semantic web research

Skepticism about adoption of semantic tagging by the masses

NSF is concerned about scientific / govt uses, not My Space

Skepticism by the database research community

Still somewhat an issue, because semantic proposals often go to to DB panels

Skepticism about scalability of semantic search and inference engines

Open research issue

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Where to apply for NSF funding for semantic web research?

CISE/IIS Division III (Information Integration and Informatics)

Funds data management, information retrieval, knowledge management, digital libraries, digital government

RI (Robust Intelligence) Funds machine learning, artificial intelligence, speech,

vision, ...

CISE CNS Division (systems) CISE CCF Division (theory)

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Where to apply for NSF funding for semantic web research?

Biology, Geosciences, ... directorates Fund domain specific ontologies for their specific

research areas May fund software tools for particular research

areas – e.g., bioinformatics sequence annotation, ...

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Where to apply for NSF funding of semantic web development?

CISE/CRI Funds infrastructure for computer science research

OCI (Office of CyberInfrastructure) Funds software development for tools of use to

broad scientific communities (biology, etc.) Anticipates funding data exchange standards and

domain specific ontologies Note: CRI and OCI support infrastructure,

not direct research support !

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Proposal Deadlines for 06-572

NSF 06-572 Program Solicitation Deadline for small (<$450K) proposals is Dec. 6,

2006 Deadlines for large ($900K-$1.8M) and medium

($450K-$900K) proposals have past Only one solicitation for IIS division this year Future solicitations expected annually with similar

deadlines.

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Contact Information for NSF CISE / IIS / III Frank Olken, folken@nsf.gov

data semantics, data/ontology integration, workflow, eng./sci. informatics, metadata registries, ...

Maria Zemankova, mzemanko@nsf.gov

Knowledge management, information retrieval, workflow, vizualization, ...

Sylvia Spengler, sspengle@nsf.gov, III Cluster Leader

Ontologies, bioinformatics, ...

Steve Griffin, sgriffin@nsf.gov

Digital libraries

Larry Brandt, lbrandt@nsf.gov

Digital government

Le Gruenwald, lgruenwa@nsf.gov

Data management, security and privacy, ...

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Contact InformationNSF/CISE/IIS

Tanya Korelsky, tkorelsky@nsf.gov Natural Language Processing

Edwina Rissland, erissland@nsf.gov Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Representation

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Contact InformationNSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure Chris Greer, cgreer@nsf.gov

Data Management cyberinfrastructure, bioinformatics, data collections

Kevin Thompson, kthompso@nsf.gov Software / middleware cyberinfrastructure

To be hired, Additional staff in data collections, knowledge

management