=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-209/paper-19
|storemode=property
|title=The BAsAS Architecture For Semantic Web Annotations
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-209/saaw06-poster02-zacharias.pdf
|volume=Vol-209
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/semweb/Zacharias06
}}
==The BAsAS Architecture For Semantic Web Annotations==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-209/saaw06-poster02-zacharias.pdf
The BAsAS Architecture For Semantic Web Annotations
∗
[Poster Abstract]
Valentin Zacharias
ontoprise GmbH
Amalienabdstr. 36 (Raumfabrik 29)
76227 Karlsruhe, GERMANY
zach@ontoprise.de
ABSTRACT on the well known Annotea idea in three crucial points:
We describe a generic architecture for the (semi-automatic) we show how the SPARQL language solves the problem
creation, storage and querying for annotations of web re- of queries for annotations. We demonstrate how AJAX
sources. Our BAsAS architecture uses recent advances from can be employed to build an annotation tool that is more
the Semantic Web and Web 2.0 communities to make Se- lightweight and less browser dependent than anything that
mantic Web annotations a reality. The BAsAS architecture exists for Annotea. Finally we show a simple architecture
makes it easy for users to start to annotate and easy for that allows semi-automatic annotation while still retaining
developer to use the annotations that get created. the extrem lighweight property of the annotation tools. To
a large part this paper can be understood as an attempt
Besides describing the general architecture we will also detail to update the ideas pioneered by annotea using technology
an implementation of this architecture build for a Semantic that was not available at the time it was initially conceived.
Web community portal.
2. ARCHITECTURE
1. INTRODUCTION The BAsAS architecture is so named for its main character-
The Semantic Web is the vision of having data on the web istics: Browser, Annotation server, AJAX and SPARQL.
defined and linked in such a way, that it can be used by These parts and their interaction are shown in Figure 1. At
machines not just for display purposes, but for integration, the core of the architecture is a Semantic Web data store
automation and reuse of data across various applications. that holds the annotations and that offers a SPARQL inter-
An Annotation is a piece of information or knowledge entity face to access them. It should also offer an HTML interface
that is associated with a document or part therof. In this for browser based access.
paper we focus on Semantic Web Annotation, understood as Annotations are done by the user with the help of an AJAX
annotations of web resources with the goal of lifting them interface to an annotation server. This annotation server
into the semantic web. Unstructured content outside of the helps to keep the client side of the annotation as lighweight
semantic web is annotated and these annotations become as possible, in particular any complex algorithms for auto-
part of the Semantic Web. In this way (a part of) the con- matic annotation are run on this server. The annotation
tent of the document becomes part of the Semantic Web, server is also responsible for receiving the information from
the document gets woven into the Semantic Web. Research the annotation interface and translating it into update re-
that understands Semantic Web Annotations in this way quests for the data store. Only with the help of such a server
must discuss the question of how the data created in the component is it possible to build an extrem lightweight an-
annotation process becomes part of the Semantic Web, how notation component.
it is retrievable and usable for computer agents. The annotation component needs some way to establish the
context it is called in for this gives the information on what
1.1 Contribution the user wants to annotate. This context can be estab-
What we are trying to do is similar to the Annotea[2][3] in- lished by a lighweight browser “plugin”. As we will see this
frastructure: define an architecture that can form the back- needs not be an actual browser plugin. A short snippet of
bone for Semantic Web annotations. We, however, improve JavaScript that browsers treat like a bookmark is sufficient
in many cases. We will also show that sometimes not even
∗A full version of this paper is available at
that is necessary.
www.valentin-zacharias.de/papers/BAsAS.pdf
3. UNITRACC COMMUNITY PORTAL
We are currently implementing the architecture described in
the preceeding chapter for the use in the system unitracc.
Unitracc(“Underground Infrastructure Training and Com-
petence Center”) is an internet based e-learning system for
the area of canalization. Unitracc also contains a collection
of web based tools that help public authorities manage and
monitor underground infrastructure. The system already
Figure 1: High level view of the BAsAS architecture
contains a large number of information units, especially en-
hanced digital versions of two standard textbooks about
canalization. Unitracc is developed by the company Prof.
Dr. Ing. Stein & Partner GmbH, a leading engineering firm
whose founder is also the author of many standard works
of technical literature. The development has been funded
in part by the German Federal Ministry of Education and
Research. Access to unitracc is available on a subscription
basis, the target audience ranges from beginning trainees
and their teachers to architects.
We are currently in the process of extending this platform in
the direction of a community portal. In addition to the core
content supplied by the creators of unitracc there should be
an outer layer of user created content, such as comments,
technical manuals uploaded by tool vendors or annotations
of web sites. We expect this layer of content to be less Figure 2: The unitracc annotation interface
reliable but also to be more current and diverse. We chose
to build the this part of the platform as open as possible: we
believe that the openness increases the motivation of people topic hierarchy are currently meant to be done only by the
to contribute. We hope that people will be less reluctant to administrators of unitracc.
put effort into a commercial site when they know that this
content can be used by everyone. The annotation interface, like the topic hierarchy editor, is
created using the Google Web Toolkit[1].
3.1 Annotation
Users of the site will be encouraged to annotate the web re- 4. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
sources relavant to unitracc using a simple annotation tool. This work was supported in part by the German Federal
For the time beeing we have settled on a very simple anno- Minsitry of Education and Resarch under the ksi under-
tation format: the annotation is always for the whole web ground project.
page and it only consists of “has topic” relations to the top-
ics from the unitracc topic hierarchy. The integration of 5. REFERENCES
the annotation tool with the browser is done with a book- [1] Google web toolkit,
marklet. The annotation interface is realized with AJAX, http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/.
it supports the user mainly by offering auto complete for
the topics. It also receives the proposals from the automatic [2] J. Kahan and M.-R. Koivunen. Annotea: an open rdf
categorization performed by the annotation servlet and dis- infrastructure for shared web annotations. In WWW,
plays them to the user. A screenshot of the annotation in- pages 623–632, 2001.
terface is shown in Figure 2. The topic hierarchy that forms
that basis for the annotations can also be edited using an [3] M.-R. Koivunena, R. Swick, and E. Prud’hommeaux.
AJAX interface. This interface also allows many people to Annotea shared bookmarks. In Proceedings of the
change the topic hierarchy simultanously. Changes to the KCAP03 workshop, 2003.