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This document describes the content of the WSMO Tutorial. The tutorial will be held at the following events:
The presentation slides and other resources will be added when they are available.
"Web Services" are defined as "loosely coupled, reusable components that semantically encapsulate discrete functionality and are distributed and programmatically accessible over standard internet protocols" [Stencil Group]. They constitute one of the "hot" areas in web technology supporting the remote invocation of business functionality over the Internet through message exchange. They promise a new level of service on top of the current web due to their possibilities of being assembled to perform functions or execute business processes. Research activities as well as industrial developments focus on implementing the mechanisms required for the remote invocation of (application) logic using standards. Marketers are pushing Web Services as THE future way of providing value-added services over the internet.
Concurrently, the idea and vision of the "Semantic Web" catches on and researchers as well as companies have already realized of the benefits of this great vision. Ontologies are considered as the basic building block of the Semantic Web as they allow machine supported data interpretation reducing the human involvement in data integration.
Basic concepts applied are ontologies that allow machine supported data interpretation While both efforts are very powerful in themselves, their combination, termed "Semantic Web Services (SWS)" opens tremendous possibilities. Web Services will transform the web from a static collection of information into a distributed device of computation. Semantic Web technology makes the World Wide Web machine-interpretable. Semantic Web Services will allow the automatic discovery, composition and execution of inter-organization business logic, making the Internet become a global common platform where organizations and individuals communicate among each other to carry out various commercial activities and to provide value-added services.
The proposed tutorial "Web Service Modeling Ontology (WSMO)", however, focuses on the Semantic Web Services initiative mainly carried by DERI and several European Union projects (DIP, SEKT, Knowledge Web, SWWS) in order to provide an ontology that allows describing the various aspects of Semantic Web Services, providing a solution for the integration problem (www.wsmo.org). Around WSMO, several tools for handling Semantic Web Services are developed, including a reasoner for discovery of Web Services, an editor for WSMO component descriptions, and repository for WSMO components. WSMO embodies a world-wide standard initiative, developed together with industrial partners and other research groups, and aligned with many different research projects. The pillars of WSMO are supplied by the Web Service Modeling Framework (WSMF), which serves as a conceptual basis. Moreover, WSMO is aligned with several other initiatives that address the problems arising in Semantic Web Services, aiming at integrating emerging technologies and overcoming the drawbacks of existing approaches.
The tutorial will enable the attendees to understand and characterize the WSMO and how to use it to describe the various aspects of Web Services. In particular, attendees will learn about the ideas and concepts underlying Semantic Web Services and gain the skills to successfully and efficiently use WSMO. The tutorial will, as far as possible, subscribe a constructivist model of learning. Therefore we will illustrate WSMO concepts through concrete examples and the tutorial will end with a hands on session where attendees will use a number of tools which support the creation and use of WSMO based Semantic Web Services. The hands on session will use both tools which are being implemented within the WSMO and WSMX working groups and IRS-II a tool which was used by students attending last year´s OntoWeb summer school on Ontological Engineering and the Semantic web to create semantic web service based applications. IRS-II is scheduled to be WSMO compliant by June, 2004.
Thus, after the tutorial attendees will be able to:
We will present, discuss and teach the current state of WSMO as well as put the current state into perspective by discussing ongoing WSMO related work and possible future directions. A substantial list of references will be provided for subsequent follow-up and literature research, together with an intensive enumeration of use cases and applications.
The tutorial will include a presentation in style of a lecture and an interactive hands on session. A detailed description of contents is given below.
The intended audience is anyone interested in Web Services, the Semantic Web and their application. Specifically, users of Web Services technology who would like to get a broader understanding of the WSMO are invited as well as users who plan to deploy Web Services technology for the Semantic Web in the future. In addition, researchers who want to get a better understanding of Semantic Web Services and WSMO.
The tutorial is mid-level not requiring any Web Services or Semantic Web technology knowledge or experience.
The tutorial is targeted as an 8 hours workshop with a focus on WSMO related issues. A beamer is required to connect the laptop for the presentation. Machines will be required for the attendees to create WSMO based Semantic Web Services in groups of 2-4.
The work is funded by the European Commission under the projects DIP, Knowledge Web, Ontoweb, SEKT, SWWS, Esperonto, and h-TechSight; by Science Foundation Ireland under the DERI-Lion project; and by the Vienna city government under the CoOperate programme.
The editors would like to thank to all the members of the WSMO working group for their advice and input to this document.