[seek-kr-sms] Update on current and future activities

[Joshua Madin]

Dear all,

The NSF site review last week seemed to go very well.  There were  
several potential areas for improvement for the KR working group.   
Generally, these were exposing our ontologies to the broader  
community for comment, and publishing in ecological journals.

I think that our primary objective for the next few weeks should be  
to finalize OBOE, so that we can then focus on domain extensions.   
Before we do this, I'd like to draw your attention to several new  
developments that need your attention before moving on.

XMML
When in Edinburgh, Shawn was pointed to another initiative for  
describing observation and measurement.  It is an XML schema for  
describing observation.  They have included some interesting points  
that we do not capture, such as measurement procedure.  It would be  
great to discuss this initiative, and to talk about ways it might  
help us with OBOE.  Because I'm not great with XML Schema, I would  
love to hear other peoples interpretation of the O&M work.  Here's  
the link (just hit cancel if you're asked for a password):

https://www.seegrid.csiro.au/twiki/bin/view/Xmml/ 
ObservationsAndMeasurements?skin=print.pattern

Observation
In New Mexico last week Ferdinando showed me some alterations that he  
had made to the observation ontology, to try and make it more  
generic.  Even though there is "almost" a consensus on OBOE, I think  
that it would be very healthy for us to review these changes and see  
how they might improve what we already have.  I'll attach the  
ontology to this email.  I'll also attach one of my flow diagrams;  
although I haven't included all the properties because of crowding  
issues.

PUBLISHING
One of the review team's criticisms was a lack of publishing outside  
of the CS realm.  I think that we can counter this criticism quickly  
by publishing OBOE, and what it can do for ecology, in some high  
profile journals.  We may want to think about a strategy where we can  
publish aspects of OBOE separately.  For example, some of us could  
target ecological journals, while others target informatics journals  
or KR journals.

MEETING
We are planning to meet in July or August and it would be great if we  
could all send dates that would suit us.  So far I have:

Mark -- July 20,21st  /  August, generally available
Ferdinando -- July 15 - 25th, late August
Josh -- Generally available
Serguei --
Deana --
Shawn --
Matt --
Corinna --
Others -- ??

I hope that we can find a good time for everyone.

Cheers,
Josh

PS. Corinna, I cc'd you because I wasn't sure if you had signed up  
for the kr-sms mailing list yet.



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