Abridged Reading List for "Expressing Knowledge Across Multiple Dimensions"

These are just a few of the resources I have gathered on the topic of knowledge mapping and ontology building. Some of these speak specifically about pattern usability where as others discuss methods for visualizing and constructing knowledge maps.

• Building the knowledge map: an industrial case study


• Mapping Knowledge Nodes, Networks, and Domains


• Visualizing Knowledge Domains (PDF)


• Knowledge Mapping for Complex Social Messes (PDF)


• An Ontology-Based Metamodel for Software Patterns (PDF)


• Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating Your First Ontology


• A Pattern Language Approach to Usability Knowledge Management (PDF)


• The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct Them


• A Pattern System For Permaculture Design

Question: Why not define and embed an Ontology within your Content?

As some of you might have noticed, I haven't made a post in a few days. This has been for a couple of reasons: 1.) the holidays, 2.) the end of the semester, and 3.) I have been focusing on research questions.

On the topic of research I have migrated back to the idea of creating NRM centered patterns and pattern languages versus creating a pattern language for NRM based systems design. The reason for this move back is due to the inescapable perception that patterns provide a fundamental model for structuring knowledge. I have thought this to be so for several years now, and as I have delved deeper into the literature of Knowledge Management Systems in the Natural Resource Sciences, I have found myself thinking of patterns as increasingly relevant components for developing community based KM systems.

However, the issues identified in my master's thesis still exist. This issues are: 1.) how do we visually express not only an individual pattern, but more specifically, how do we express a network of patterns?, and 2.) how do groups search and access interrelated knowledge within a system of patterns?

While the first question seems to interest my colleagues the most, it seems to me that the issue of traversing a pattern knowledge-base should be the first issue to solve, with the visual display coming in after the underlying mechanisms for calling relevant patterns have been addressed. This I think is especially relevant when considering the growing scope of pattern languages and the vast number of patterns that have been authored over the years.

This assumption and observation has led me to consider approaches to solving this issue. As a result, I have been doing an extensive investigation into the role of ontologies and taxonomies for describing relationships between patterns. This brought me to a paper written by Scott Henninger from the University of Nebraska who has describe similar thinking. The paper entitled, "Disseminating Usability Design Knowledge through Ontology-Based Pattern Languages" argues for need to develop ontologies for patterns so that groups might be better able to search and draw upon previously codified knowledge. His approach was to use OWL (Web Ontology Language) as specified by W3C.

This discussion on OWL sparked an intensive search into OWL and related technologies. However, the complexity of the technology and how it is applied has made it very difficult for me to get my head around. I understand the notion of a Semantic Web and I think the vision of such a web is extremely interesting.

However, I have been looking at the Pattern Language Markup Language (PLML) as suggested by Yishay and I just started to wonder, "Why not embed these ontological rules between patterns/problem/solution/forces directly within the PLML marked-up patterns. Meaning, why not just extend the DTD for PLML to include ? In this way the PLML document could be processed with any programming language that has support for XML.

Now, I understand that this might negate the idea of a global Semantic Web based upon the standards set forth by the W3C. But it just seems to me that this approach is so much simpler (except for the fact that pOWL and Protege-OWL attempt to make ontology creation easier).

I don't know, but RDF and OWL confuse me.

Someone, please explain why I couldn't or wouldn't want to embed simple ontological statements in my XML doc? pOWL seems interesting, but why?

Musings over the Implications of Tagging for Research, aka Social Bookmarking

Below is my out-loud thinking during an e-mail with one of the Assistant Directors here at CTLT that focused on folksonomy

Cleaned-up a bit:

An interesting thesis might be to gauge how tags help researchers branch into cross-disciplinary domains. For example, I hypothesize: as more people start actively tagging content, and as people start using tags to find interrelated information, more people will start coming across tags that connect to seemingly unrelated information. In this sense a researcher could essentially begin to traverse a vast amount of content that is now linked, but in more traditional domains of academia would be considered disconnected and unrelated. I would think that these newly identified connections might open up researchers to new ways of viewing their research domain, as well as provide opportunities for more interdisciplinary study.

This also prompted an investigation into the idea of community based ontology.

Now, one might ask, "How did you go from tagging and the growth of interdisciplinary research to thinking about community ontology?"

Well, community, because I started thinking of how social bookmarking/tagging might be useful in a system focused on environmental monitoring and collaborative planning. And ontology, because that is what we are thinking about when trying to define some piece of information and its relationships.

Anyway, I came across this very simple and yet useful slide show.

Concept Maps or Topic Maps

Need Some Help...

So in furthering this idea of enabling a collaborative space for users to visually map patterns to construct relevant pattern languages, I have been considering the various approaches afforded through Concept Maps and Mind Maps. Now, each mapping approach has a list of associated software products to aid in this visual process. Some of these products such as Cmap provide a server tool to allow for collaborative mapping among multiple people, basically providing exactly what I have been looking to implement for the patterns we have.

This seems like a very possible avenue to take. Plus, it is free to educational institutions and they provide donations to non-profits, like PSP. For those unfamiliar with idea of concept maps, see this definition:

"Concept mapping is a technique for visualizing the relationships among different concepts. A concept map is a diagram showing the relationships among concepts. Concepts are connected with labeled arrows, in a downward-branching hierarchical structure. The relationship between concepts is articulated in linking phrases, e.g., "gives rise to", "results in", "is required by," or "contributes to" - Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Basically, these concepts are linked together in a semantic relationship defined by the person or persons designing the map. So, for us pattern language designers we could in focus on encouraging the development of a single pattern and define semantic connections to other patterns below it and above it in the pattern language heirachy.

Take a look at the image below and envision, say "Grassroots Public Policy Development" as taking the place of what is currently there. Similar to the map below we could make connections and assert that Grassroots Public Policy Development is enabled through greater levels of "Civic Capabilities," which is dependent upon a certain level of "Civic Intelligence." Civic Intelligence might also be supported through patterns such as "Informal Learning Groups" and continued access to "Political Settings."



However, some might say that this approach is limiting and some ways it might be. I have been reading a bit on Topic Maps and came across this response on infoloom to the question surrounding the difference between concept maps and topic maps:

"First, concept maps and topic maps are born out of the same desire: to
represent what we think or what we know in a graph. Here, the term graph
can be taken both in its visual sense, and in its mathematical
sense. Concept maps emphasize the visual and, in the paper and pencil
instance, ignore the mathematical sense. Topic maps emphasize the graph
structure, the mathematical sense, and leave the visual or presentation
entirely up to implementors of topic map engines.

The second response is to delve into the structures of concept and topic
maps. They are both the same and they are different. Concept maps, as I
think Joseph Novak formalized them, consist of named nodes and labeled
arcs. Topic maps, as I think Steve Newcomb and others formalized them,
consist of a few more objects than that, objects that deal with
occurrences, scopes, roles, association membership, and so forth."
- Jack Park

I have been reading other responses in other areas and much of what is see appears to be similar. Now, there seems to be something interesting here in that it is possible that we don't want to build concept maps at all but rather topic maps, that could possess the visual structure of a concept map. Perhaps this is what we are after in designing these pattern languages through the web. Perhaps, the extension of these maps to include the scope, associations and so forth.

I would really like to here some thoughts on this...

Patterns and an Intelligent Web

In contemplating the usage of patterns for sustainable development and planning as tools to be accessed collaboratively through the web, I began to contemplate the usage of patterns with their structure of title, problem, context and so on as a way to enable intelligent computing.

There has been so much talk about the semantic web as a step in this direction and from the very little I understand I see RDF, or resource description framework as being an idea that could enable this vision. However, patterns themselves possess an inherent structure that could lend them to being extremely useful to furthering this vision.

For instance, the notion of defining a generic problem within a specific pattern provides an interesting set of options. These problem descriptions possess key words that could be searched. Also, the problems could be broken up to possess their own URI along with a subject and predicate that could also make use of the RDF technology.

Why is this important? Well, in thinking of using patterns to support through the web planning and design, it is conceivable to think that many different patterns that span across domains of knowledge could be queried to support a more holistic design solution.

The Liberating Voices! project has so many great "nuggets of knowledge" yet there are elements that are missing with regards to the lower-level patterns. Most of what is in the current project are fairly high-level. This is not to say that they are so high-level that their usefulness is abstracted away from the casual observer, but my point is there is a lot of information left out. The other issue with the project is that the lower-level patterns that address more specific elements for designing communicative solutions to entrenched problems don’t pertain to ever

Now on the other hand, there are many other projects taking place that could be useful to help fill in the gaps. So, the question is how can we harness the possibilities offered through these different projects. Perhaps we can begin thinking of these projects as being meta-patterns themselves representing the highest level in our design. But again, how do we make these connections through the web where these various projects are not all structured the same way, nor connected together?

Currently, Liberating Voices! has this way of getting at these patterns through an xml dump. In this way we can query the patterns in the database based upon a set of parameters and retrieve patterns relevant to the parameters we provide. Now, this provides an important level of flexibility for those interested in using the Liberating Voices! patterns, but what if someone part of planning committee has need of a pattern that isn’t there?

It is possible that the planning group is clever enough to construct a solution, but it is possible that another solution has been provided by another pattern language project. Also, the pattern may provide a solution, but similar to the Liberating Voices! project, this pattern may also highlight some potential pitfalls and situations that could make the solution problematic. As a result, the planning group could miss out on this warning as well as the opportunity to identify other patterns that might be critical to mitigating these potential shortcomings.

I think it would be incredible to have these various groups get together to discuss greater levels of collaboration. I understand there are possibly conflicting interests, but if people could begin supporting open structures it is possible that the adoption of patterns as heuristic tools for design, planning and so forth could not just increase in popularity, but be more effective in fulfilling the basic premise of holism.

This way we could be in effect querying all of these different pattern repositories in order to construct our more context specific pattern languages. This is also important because if these repositories are distributed and that way the knowledge represented in these differing repositories can be managed by those already heavily involved with these specific domains.

This brings us to the idea of pattern adaptation based upon further real-world experience. So, how might actual users be able to help refine and illuminate the possibilities and pitfalls of various patterns? How might users take their experiences and help strengthen current patterns? Likewise, how might these cases help inform future pattern implementations?

But these are questions for the next post.