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About the Knowledge Articulation Subproject

How can people efficiently transfer knowledge from their minds to their computer tools?
We combine different approches that have proven to be useful into one powerful environment.

Having started by creating several Semantic Wiki Prototypes and taking into account what we have learned from their evaluation, we are currently designing a hypertext-based knowledge workbench that uses natural language processing and a set of Conceptual Data Structures (CDS), specially designed to easily represent formal as well as more vaguely structured knowledge. We are also buildinig a Zooming User Interface based on iMapping which is a technique for visually editing, restructuring and browing information objects. During 2008, these functionalities will be combined into the Integrated Knowledge Workbench. During the different stages of our development process we repeatedly evaluate prototypes to learn for further design decisions.

Components Overview

iMapping

iMapping is a technique for visually structuring information ob jects. It supports the full range from informal note taking over semi-structured personal information management to formal knowledge models. With iMaps, users can easily go from overview to fine-grained structures while browsing editing or refining the knowledge base in one comprehensive view. An iMap is comparable to a large white-board where information items can be positioned like post-its but also nested into each other. Spatial browsing and zooming as well as graphical editing facilities make it easy to structure content in an intuitive way. iMapping builds on a zooming user interface approach to facilitate navigation and to help users maintain an overview in the knowledge space.

• For further information (including literature) on iMapping see http://imapping.info
• iMapping development information can be found at http://dev.imapping.info

swecr

SWECR is a semantic web content repository. It builds on RDF2Go, a binary store (mapping URIs to binary streams), and a Lucene text index. SWECR implements a 'semantic web content model' - that is a number of content items can have relations, binary content, and collaborative metadata (such as author and change date). See http://swecr.semweb4j.org

CDS

CDS stands for 'conceptual data structures'. CDS is an attempt to create a high-level conceptual vocabulary suited to describe any kind of knowledge, ranging from simple, unstructured notes to full-bown ontologies. CDS is created to help in Personal Knowledge Management, where easy ways to structure data are crucial for searching and browsing. CDS builds on swecr.

• A paper on CDS can be found at http://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/0744443b918357ca225c9d04fe56baa8f
• The API development happens here: http://semweb4j.org/site/cds
• Online Demo and more via: http://cds.xam.de

gnogno gui components

A set of components to create simple widgets to display and edit data from RDF graphs. It is based on rdf2go and runs on Swing and SWT.

• GnognoComp

PimoEditor

Another semantic editing user interface is the PimoEditor.

Semantic text processing

Semantic text processing component combines all functionality related to natural language texts. It includes:

• Text processor, which performs lexical analysis of natural language texts, detection of keywords, speech-acts, etc.
• Semantic processor, which performs text analysis in relation to some domain-specific or personal information ontology. It finds topic of a document and disambiguates words used in text by linking them to ontological concepts.

Semantic Wiki

In the final PSEW NEPOMUK, there is a semantic wiki, see

• PsewSemanticWiki

Semantic Wiki Prototypes

At the end of 2006, there were several wiki prototypes in NEPOMUK. (Parts of) these prototypes are now used in case studies. Main development of these prototypes is now finished - new components embedded in the main NEPOMUK architecture and based on the experience learned from the prototypes are under way.

• Kaukolu - a semantic wiki allowing arbitrary triples on every page. JSPWiki-based.
• SemanticPad
  • using the WikiModel backend
• Semantic MediaWiki

Application Plugins

see ApplicationPlugins for plugins that enhance existing applications with nepomuk functionality

Contact / How to help

If you want to help us by testinig the current software or are interested in contributing to or reusing our code, please check the links to the respective components above or contact heiko.haller @fzi.de .