Friday, September 7, 2007
New OWL WG
The W3C working group to pick up the OWL 1.1 work that Sandro Hawke announced was under consideration at OWLED 2007 has begun. You can read Sandro's announcement to the public-owl-dev list. We should expect the migration of the OWL 1.1 documents and related stuff (issue list, wiki pages, etc.) to the W3C's site over time. The Google code site and webont.org shall continue as community spaces for the development and nurturing of OWL both in support of the working group and esp. in support of the OWLED workshop series and the OWLED Task Forces.
Labels: OWL WG
Friday, August 10, 2007
OWLED 2007 wrap up
A version of this post was sent to public-owl-dev and directly to the OWLED 2007 participants.
First, it was a success. We had 92 registered participants and 46 or so papers and posters which meant a very busy couple of days! This is up from around 60 participants and 30-some papers in prior years.
The websites for OWLEDs 2005-2007 are now archived at:
This is the first place to check for future OWLEDs and all OWLED related information.
Second, one of the prime goals of the OWLED workshop series has been (nearly) completed. W3C Team Member Sandro Hawke announced that the W3C had started work on a charter for a possible new OWL working group. That charter:
is now under review by the W3C Advisory Committee. If it passes muster, the new working group should have its first telecons this fall.
If you are connected to a W3C member organization, it is really important to have your AC representative comment favorably on this proposal. If your organization is considering joining in order to participate in the WG, it would be very helpful to communicate this fact to the W3C. Finally, if you are planning to use OWL 1.1 in a product (or build a product supporting OWL 1.1), this is useful information as well.
I'm (personally) happy to have informal, informational discussions with anyone who's curious about participation, W3C terminology or procedures, etc. on list or off. A critical point: You do not have to be a member of the working group in order to contribute to or significantly influence the work of the WG. All the current discussions of OWL 1.1 get logged in the issues list on the OWL 1.1 google code project and will be transfered to whatever mechanism the WG uses to track things. I feel certain that WG face to face meetings will try to coordinate with OWLED meetings.
The proposed chairs are Ian Horrocks and Alan Ruttenberg and the proposed principle team contact is Sandro Hawke. Sandro deserves big kudos for stepping up to be the team contact and doing an outstanding job so far (esp. with the charter). Sandro is also the RIF team contact.
Third, OWLED 2008 will again align with ISWC (2008). The general chair of OWLED 2008 is Alan Ruttenberg. However, re-aligning with ISWC means a rather long gap between OWLEDs, so at the business meeting we decided to hold an "interim" OWLED sometimes in the March/April time frame, in the Washington DC, USA area. This one will be a little experimental and is organized by Kendall Clark and Peter Patel-Schneider.
I look forward to both meetings!
Fourth, we added a bit of formal organization to the steering committee in the form of a community driven membership policy:
I'm pleased to say that John Goodwin, of the UK Ordnance Survey, was elected (in a rather competitive election, I might add!) to the steering committee.
Fifth, now that OWL 1.1 -- which was the center of OWLED "work" sessions -- is out of our hands, the "What next?" question became critical. The OWLED 2007 participants have "chartered" a number of task forces to address different issues facing the community. TFs are intended to provide a bit of structure, focus, and impetus to the so called "standardization" sessions. A general description of the mechanism and currently "charter" TFs is at:
And the working coordination wiki page is at:
TFs are definitely experimental and evolving and I welcome feedback and discussion, whether on or off list.
Finally, at the request of some OWLED 2007 participants, there is now a low traffic OWLED/WebOnt.org blog + RSS feed. You are reading it. All critical announcements (call for spec and report reviews, CFPs, etc.) will be posted there.
First, it was a success. We had 92 registered participants and 46 or so papers and posters which meant a very busy couple of days! This is up from around 60 participants and 30-some papers in prior years.
The websites for OWLEDs 2005-2007 are now archived at:
http://webont.org/owled/
This is the first place to check for future OWLEDs and all OWLED related information.
Second, one of the prime goals of the OWLED workshop series has been (nearly) completed. W3C Team Member Sandro Hawke announced that the W3C had started work on a charter for a possible new OWL working group. That charter:
http://www.w3.org/2007/06/OWLCharter
is now under review by the W3C Advisory Committee. If it passes muster, the new working group should have its first telecons this fall.
If you are connected to a W3C member organization, it is really important to have your AC representative comment favorably on this proposal. If your organization is considering joining in order to participate in the WG, it would be very helpful to communicate this fact to the W3C. Finally, if you are planning to use OWL 1.1 in a product (or build a product supporting OWL 1.1), this is useful information as well.
I'm (personally) happy to have informal, informational discussions with anyone who's curious about participation, W3C terminology or procedures, etc. on list or off. A critical point: You do not have to be a member of the working group in order to contribute to or significantly influence the work of the WG. All the current discussions of OWL 1.1 get logged in the issues list on the OWL 1.1 google code project and will be transfered to whatever mechanism the WG uses to track things. I feel certain that WG face to face meetings will try to coordinate with OWLED meetings.
The proposed chairs are Ian Horrocks and Alan Ruttenberg and the proposed principle team contact is Sandro Hawke. Sandro deserves big kudos for stepping up to be the team contact and doing an outstanding job so far (esp. with the charter). Sandro is also the RIF team contact.
Third, OWLED 2008 will again align with ISWC (2008). The general chair of OWLED 2008 is Alan Ruttenberg. However, re-aligning with ISWC means a rather long gap between OWLEDs, so at the business meeting we decided to hold an "interim" OWLED sometimes in the March/April time frame, in the Washington DC, USA area. This one will be a little experimental and is organized by Kendall Clark and Peter Patel-Schneider.
I look forward to both meetings!
Fourth, we added a bit of formal organization to the steering committee in the form of a community driven membership policy:
http://webont.org/owled/steering.html
I'm pleased to say that John Goodwin, of the UK Ordnance Survey, was elected (in a rather competitive election, I might add!) to the steering committee.
Fifth, now that OWL 1.1 -- which was the center of OWLED "work" sessions -- is out of our hands, the "What next?" question became critical. The OWLED 2007 participants have "chartered" a number of task forces to address different issues facing the community. TFs are intended to provide a bit of structure, focus, and impetus to the so called "standardization" sessions. A general description of the mechanism and currently "charter" TFs is at:
http://webont.org/owled/taskforces/
And the working coordination wiki page is at:
http://code.google.com/p/owl1-1/wiki/TaskForces
TFs are definitely experimental and evolving and I welcome feedback and discussion, whether on or off list.
Finally, at the request of some OWLED 2007 participants, there is now a low traffic OWLED/WebOnt.org blog + RSS feed. You are reading it. All critical announcements (call for spec and report reviews, CFPs, etc.) will be posted there.
Labels: OWL WG, OWLED2007, Task Forces
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