This document is also available in non-normative PDF version.
This prototype is intended to enable interested parties to experiment with the formal description provided by WSMO. It is based on the Flora Query Tab [Sintek, 2001] written by Michael Sintek. Note that there have been no functional changes to the software since the 19th April 2004.
There are two download options:
The latter is intended for people who want to upgrade to a newer version of the plugin, in which case there is no need to reinstall the Flora engine.
The WSMOTab is a plug-in for Protege [Crubézy et al., 2004] (build 85, compiled for Protégé 2.0 or above).
Full Installation (first install)
flora.directory=C\:\\WSMOTab\\tmp\\
flora.xsb.command=C\:\\WSMOTab\\XSB2.2-stderr\\config\\x86-pc-windows\\bin\\xsb
flora.xsb.stderr=true
Adapt the paths to your system if necessary.
Minimal Installation (Core - updates only)
The current version of the Editor implements WSMO-Standard V02 [Roman et al., 2004]. Please note that this is an early release, a lot of improvements are needed.
Limitations: The meta model for the ontology is simplified (according to the OKBC compliant meta model of Protege, i.e. we support at the moment concepts (classes) and attributes (facets)). It is currently not possible to modularize ontologies. All information (WSMO, domain ontology and instance data are exported to Flora).
Usage: After starting Protege load the WSMO ontology that came with the zip file ("C:\WSMOTab\examples"). In the classes and instances Tab you can maintain your domain ontology. Within the Web Service Tab you can create the annotation for your service. Note, that all instances will be exported into a separate file (when invoking Flora), so you can browse through the relevant F-logic [Kifer et al., 1995] syntax.
Within the Flora Tab, you can add additional axioms to the knowledge base and execute specific queries. For a more detailed presentation on this feature, please refer to the explanations given at [Sintek, 2001] of the Flora Tab by Michael Sintek.
Screenshots:
Figure 1: Axiom definition (syntax check)
Figure 2: Syntax completion
Figure 3: Ontology and instance construction
Figure 4: Interface to Flora
Development: A short documentation on the development environment can be found here.
JavaDoc: The Java Documentation can be found here.
This Protege Plug-in can be seen as an early prototype that explores the possibility to integrating the WSMO Editor into a common ontology environment such as Protege. Other efforts, such as the second version of the SWWS Studio (WSMO Edition) are implemented as a standalone java application. It is available from http://stronghold.sirma.bg/swws/ and offers support for all language constructs defined in the WSML version from the 18th of April, 2004 (http://www.wsmo.org/2004/d16/d16.1/v0.2/20040418/).
However the concrete syntax for the annotation of WSMO concepts significantly changed in the past few
months. The concrete syntax specification can be found in WSML Deliverable 16.1 (BNF grammar for WSML language),
which is applied in WSMO Deliverable 3.2 (WSMO Use Case Modeling and Testing) and
the corresponding conceptual model is defined in WSMO Deliverable D2 (Web Service Modeling Ontology - Standard).
So far only the aspects dealing with ontology
definition and their usage in the web service annotation, have been studied in detail in those documents, but
a full WSMO Editor is also expected to deal with the interfaces (choreography and orchestration),
including a way to ground a Service Description to a concrete technology (e.g. with a WSDL document). Additionally
also Mediators need to be handled. Given that, a plug-in designed for a pure ontology editing environment, such as Protege,
might in future be too inflexible to handle all the requirements. WSMO has defined its own Meta-Model for
ontologies, which uses different terminology and concepts (w.r.t. to the OKBC model used by Protege).
For the above mentioned reasons we are currently considering building a new editor not based on Protege and currently gathering
requirements for it. Here we just give a brief list of aspects to be considered:
Note that this list does not claim to be complete, but it should outline the broad scope of such an editor. It also illustrates that a plug-in architecture is needed.
The following changes have been made with respect to the version 0.1 from the 29th of June 2004:
[Crubézy et al., 2004] Monica Crubézy, Olivier Dameron, Ray Fergerson, Holger Knublauch, Mark Musen, Natasha Noy, Daniel Rubin, Samson Tu, Jennifer Vendetti. Protege Ontology Editor, the Stanford University School of Medicine, available from http://protege.stanford.edu/.
[Sintek, 2001] M. Sintek. The Flora Query Tab, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, available from http://www.dfki.uni-kl.de/~sintek/FloraTab/.
[Roman et al., 2004] D. Roman, U. Keller, H. Lausen (Eds.): D2v03. Web Service Modeling Ontology - Lite (WSMO-Lite), version 0.3 available at http://www.wsmo.org/2004/d2/v0.3/20040329/
This 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 advises and inputs to this document.