Oder wie mein (Pongauer) Kollege Rupert auf Facebook kommentiert hat: “In Bayern braucht ein Mensch 1er Klasse vor allem Geld. In Österreich muss er den Mund halten können”.:-)

Verschneite Weide

Nachdem ich für die Skitour etwas zu spät aufgestanden bin (mein Vater war schon weg …) und es so schön warm war, hab ich mir stattdessen vorgenommen mit Mariposa über Bucheck, Abstreit und Hinterwelln bis zum Hochberg zwischen Traunstein und Siegsdorf zu reiten, einem schönen Aussichtspunkt am Rand der gleichen Hügelkette (Gletscherendmoräne um genau zu sein) wie der Hof meiner Eltern. Denn wir (naja, ich) wollten diesmal auf den Chiemsee runterschauen.:-) Gleichzeitig der weiteste Ausritt dieses Jahr, denn bisher war es einfach zu kalt. Das nächste Bild zeigt Mariposa in Bucheck, im Hintergrund die Chiemgauer Berge:

Bucheck

Ab Abstreit gings an der Langlaufloipe entlang, mit tausenden Langläufern, und dann durch den Wald nach Hinterwelln. Bei uns liegt trotz Föhn noch sehr viel Schnee, so dass das für Mariposa teilweise harte Arbeit ist. Nach zwei Stunden waren wir dann endlich an unserem Ziel – dem Hochberg. Leider hab ich das Geld vergessen, so dass aus dem geplanten Radler nix geworden ist, und so gab es für das liebe Pferdchen nur ein paar Stücke trockenes Brot. Aber ordentlich angestrengt hatte sie sich. Das nächste Bild ist das “Pausenbild” am Hochberg. Mariposa ziemlich verschwitzt im Vordergrund, links im Hintergrund wieder die Chiemgauer (Hochfelln und Hochgern) und rechts der Chiemsee.

Pause am Hochberg

Nach der Pause gings dann auf einem anderen Weg wieder zurück (Holzleiten, Kirchleiten, Abstreit, durchs Moor nach Preising). Zu Hause in der Nachmittagssonne durfte Mariposa dann zusammen mit all unseren anderen Tieren die verschneite Weide geniessen:

All unsere Tiere - Idylle in Knappenfeld

Ein wunderschöner Föhntag. Die Vögel sind bereits wieder da, der Schnee ist noch da, die Sonne ist warm und der Himmel blau. So wie es sich in Bayern gehört.:-) Und der Tag endet mit einem tollen Sonnenuntergang (mit Schneemann):

Schneemann im Sonnenuntergang

Die vollständige Bilderserie gibt es in der Gallerie:

[Mit PicLens anzeigen]

 

]]> http://www.schaffert.eu/2010/02/22/fruhlingsausritt-auf-den-hochberg/feed/ 0 http://www.schaffert.eu/2010/01/30/digital-social-networks-perspectives-workshop-at-dagstuhl-castle/ http://www.schaffert.eu/2010/01/30/digital-social-networks-perspectives-workshop-at-dagstuhl-castle/#comments Sat, 30 Jan 2010 10:07:16 +0000 wastl http://www.schaffert.eu/?p=526 Social Media are one of the revolutionary trends of our time. Up till now, they have been largely driven by practitioners. Research on the field has been either computer science or social sciences and is mainly observing the trend without taking really part. One could argue that this is a good thing, but as a researcher I am of course convinced of the opposite. Last week, we therefore had a “perspectives workshop” at Dagstuhl Castle near Saarbrücken in Germany where we discussed what research can actively do to accompany the social media revolution, “smoothening” its negative effects and emphasising its positive effects on society and economy, and helping in educating currently unaware parts of society, economy, and science. The workshop was organised by Clemens Cap (Rostock University), François Bry (Munich University), Julia Maintz (Microsoft, now freelancer), and myself (Salzburg Research).

Dagstuhl Castle in a nice winter night

While a Dagstuhl workshop in itself is a special thing that you only get granted a few times in a researcher lifetime, a perspectives workshop is even more so, because it is aimed to “kickstart” a research topic, and there are only 5 such workshops overall in a year. Outcome of this workshop will be a manifesto that is distributed to decision and policy makers in politics, research, economy and media. Particularly interesting and noteworthy was the interdisciplinary nature of the workshop with participants from computer science, social sciences, and industry.

The Digital Social Networks Manifesto

In the following, I will briefly sketch the draft outcome of this workshop, a result of countless hours of discussions and a joint work of all participants of the workshop. Since the real manifesto is still to come (I’ll keep you updated), I’ll only summarise what is alreafy there without going into too much details.

What are Social Media?

In the group, we found a common definition of what we believe to be the central aspects of social media:

“Digital social media use information and communication technologies (such as the Internet, Web-based technologies, and/or specific software systems) for users and (possibly emerging) communities to collaboratively generate and exchange content and, more generally, to interact. They ease and strengthen social interactions by overcoming physical limitations in communication (like distance and synchronicity) and alleviating human limitations like in the number of people with whom one can maintain relationships. Digital social media thus offer opportunities for social interactions that would not be possible without them. Digital social media build and/or rely upon social networks which can even be the primary purpose of the media.

Examples of online social media are digital social networks (like facebook, LinkedIn and Xing), blogs, content sharing site (like flikr and YouTube), wikis (like used in the wikipedia encyclopedic project), backchannels (like twitter) and innovation markets (like InnoCentive).

Digital social media have appeared during the last decade and have spread extremely rapidly. Some are very successful at building up and keeping users communities. For some users, digital social media have become as common as, or have even replaced, telephone and email.”

Why are they important?

Social media are a revolutionary trend in our society and economy. They change the way we communicate to an extent similar to the invention of the printing press, and accommodate for the communication needs in a world of increased mobility, urbanisation, and globalisation. With the revolutionary character comes a dramatic change in society where existing business models, professions, and societal structures are replaced by new ones that have yet to emerge. At the same time, social media have the potential to offer huge benefits to society in many fields, e.g. the democratic process.

Challenges and Opportunities

We identified challenges and opportunities in the following areas:

• Socio-cultural Challenges: improving media literacy, smoothen negative and strengthen positive effects, importance of relationships, personal identity, trust and privacy
• Political Challenges: e-participation, e-democracy, e-Europe, Internet laws and policies
• Economic Challenges: new business models, integration of social media in enterprises
• Technological Challenges: usability, trust and privacy, decentralised social networks, media integration, personalisation, …

The challenges will be described in detail in the manifesto, scheduled for end of March.

Research Issues

The topic of digital social networks is a truly interdisciplinary field where researchers from several different fields can (and need to) participate. Since the majority of the participants of the seminar where from the computer science area, most research issues we identified have a computer science focus, but this does not mean that other research issues are less important. We structured research issues along the following themes:

• Society and Economy
• Architecture and Infrastructure
• Services and Applications
• Trust, Privacy and Security

Barriers and Enablers

There are a number of barriers and enablers that could either hinder that we benefit of social media or support the process. Since this is a delicate topic, I do not want to go into too much detail here until we have decided on the correct phrasing. Just a few examples:

• an important barrier is lack of media literacy throughout many parts of society, especially with decision makers and those in the educational sector
• important enablers are the technological development in itself, and the fact that the technology satisfies an apparent communication need in a society with increased mobility, urbanisation and globalisation

The final version of the manifesto is scheduled for end of March. I will publish it then on my website for everyone to read it (and comment on it). In the meantime, feel free to comment and add to what I have written above.

Acknowledgements

I would like to again say “thank you” to all participants (and all those who wanted to come but could not) for their important contribution. I conclude this blog post with the “group picture” taken before the hike we took as social event on Wednesday:

The Dagstuhl working group on Digital Social Networks

Und nachdem die Vormittagstour eher kurz war (Werner hatte nachmittags noch was vor) und das Wetter so schön, hab ich am Nachmittag noch das Radl ausgepackt und bin zum Listsee und Thumsee hochgeradlt, wo u.a. folgendes Bild entstanden ist:

Ein Hoch auf die Heimat, so schön wie bei uns ist’s nirgendwo. Das hat auch schon Humboldt gesagt, und der hat viel gesehen!

Hier gibt es ein paar mehr Bilder:

[Mit PicLens anzeigen]

 

Heute war ich mit Werner übrigens nochmal die gleiche Tour auf dem Jenner – mangels ordentlicher Alternative. Wir haben entschieden dass das wegen des wenigen Schnees eher eine Winterwanderung ist.

• Reasoning. This is the first release to include KiWi’s rule-based reasoner. The reasoner applies rules to triples in the triple store and allows to infer new triples based on this information. Rules can currently only be specified by developers (in a file called rules.txt), but we intend to open this to advanced users of the KiWi system. Evaluation is currently forward chaining with reason maintenance. Reason maintenance can also be used to “explain” to the user why certain triples have been inferred. This is for example visible in the “References” widget of the wiki when hovering the mouse over an inferred relation. The reasoning component has been implemented by Jakub Kotowski at the University of Munich.
• Querying. The 0.7 KiWi release also for the first time features the new and innovative querying component called “KWQL”. KWQL is an advanced query language that can be used as a replacement for the normal KiWi semantic search. It allows advanced query constructs for querying the structure of KiWi content in a simple-to-use language. KWQL also offers a visual query editor for composing queries. KWQL can be accessed by issuing an ordinary search and then clicking on “KWQL” besides the search input field. KWQL has been implemented by Klara Weiand and Steffen Hausmann at the University of Munich.
• Information Extraction. The 0.7 release of KiWi has also included a variety of different information extraction technologies (and more to come!) based on GATE and Semantic Vectors. For the moment, information extraction can be used for tag recommendation and recommendation of related articles. Using GATE, English or German texts can be analyzed and more precise tag recommendations can be made. Information extraction has been integrated by Marek Schmidt at the Technical University of Brno.
• Personalized Search. KiWi also now includes an option to personalize the search results based on the previous tagging activity of the user and the tags associated with the search results. To access personalized search, simply click on the “personalized search” checkbox in the search interface. Note that personalized search requires that you already have some information in your user profile (primarily  tagging behavious). Personalized Search has been implemented by Fred Durao at the University of Aalborg.
• Community Equity. Release 0.7 is also the first KiWi version to have Sun’s Community Equity algorithm integrated in the system. Community Equity is an algorithm that tries to determin the “social value” of information in a collaborative system by tracking how much interest is generated about a certain item. Community Equity is pretty sophisticated, featuring also an aging algorithm that avoids reputation being built up ad infinitum. Community Equity has been implemented by the Community Equity team at Sun (Josef, Dimitri, Max) and integrated by Mihai Radulescu at Salzburg Research.
• Optimistic Locking. KiWi 0.7 switched the data and transaction model to more error-proof optimistic locking; this also makes the system more reliable in concurrent situations, i.e. if two users change the same content. Optimistic Locking has been implemented by Stephanie Stroka at Salzburg Research.
• Simplified Setup. When starting for the first time, users are now guided through a semi-automatic setup process that makes configuring KiWi much simpler than it used to be. The setup process has been implemented by myself, and Mihai is now working on making it even more simpler, allowing users also to configure database and path settings via the Web-based interface.
• TagIT2. The TagIT application has been completely reimplemented and is scheduled for beta-testing starting January. New features are a completely new user interface, the possibility to display users in addition to news and blog posts, and many usability improvements. TagIT2 has mostly been implemented by Thomas Kurz at Salzburg Research.

There have been many smaller enhancements that I cannot mention here in detail (Exhbit support, Facebook integration, FOAF+SSL integration, …) and even more bug fixes. Thanks a lot to all project members for their participation!

Availability

As usual, the KiWi release is available at the following locations:

• binary download (bundled with JBoss, ready-to-run): http://kenai.com/projects/kiwi/downloads/download/kiwi-jboss-0.7.zip (250 MB)
• source download: please use the KiWi Subversion repository at https://svn.salzburgresearch.at/svn/kiwi/KiWi/trunk (latest revision) or https://svn.salzburgresearch.at/svn/kiwi/KiWi/tags/0.7 (0.7 release)
• showcase/demo: the latest KiWi version can also be tried out at our showcase installation at http://showcase.kiwi-project.eu/KiWi/ ; be aware that the showcase is erased regularly and we don’t have much content in it currently (note: the showcase has been shut down over Christmas because vandals are misusing it for distributing their spam links and I don’t have the nerve to look at it over Christmas!)
• issue tracking: please use the KiWi Jira at http://wiki.kiwi-project.eu/atlassian-jira/browse/KIWI to report any issues you encounter
• help: please use either the KiWi developer mailinglist (kiwi-devel@kiwi-project.eu) or the issue tracking for the moment; we are currently also in the process of setting up a wiki for the project

Road Map

Undoubtedly, version 0.7 still contains many bugs. In the weeks after Christmas, we will therefore likely release minor updates improving the stability and reliability of the system. These will be numbered 0.7.x.

Version 0.8 of KiWi is scheduled for end of February 2010. It will have improved Community Equity support, first draft of permission management, and Semantic Forms support. Version 0.9 is scheduled for end of May and will feature an improved user interface and widget support based on SmartGWT. Version 1.0 (final) is scheduled for end of August, with one month of testing.

A KiWi handbook will be written starting September 2010. It will contain not only instructions on how to use the KiWi system but also practical examples and best practices on how it can be used.

Ich freu mich schon auf die nächsten Skitouren – Winter ist einfach eine der schönsten vier Jahreszeiten!

The day continued with several sessions on cross-cutting concerns of the Future Internet. I participated in “Different architectures for different business models”, “What does Future Internet mean for smart cities?”, and “What does Future Internet mean for enterprise”. I very much liked the session on smart cities, but the other two were a bit frustrating: in the architectures, the message of the speakers / organisers was basically: take our architecture, we know it better anyways. And in the enterprise session, while I found the “knowledge café” idea pretty good, I was very unhappy with the moderation because all discussions were very superficial and as soon as we wanted to go into more details it was cut off.

The second day was dedicated to thematic sessions. I participated in the “Future Content Networks” session, though the “Software and Services” session would have been fitting as well. The first presentation was by Spanish Television and described there vision on New Media applications of the future. I found this talk very inspiring. But the rest of the session was basically wasted time.

What is frustrating me very much in the Future Internet community is that everything is superficial, and almost noone talks about what concretely the Future Internet will bring us, what applications can be envisioned, and how this all would benefit the user. Everything is just about infrastructure. How can we even discuss what it means for the enterprise when we cannot present them a vision on how it looks like?

The final talk was given by the CTO of Ericsson. First shocking message was that Ericsson moves its headquarters to Silicon Valley (to “profit from the innovative spirit there”). WTF? A European technology company moves its headquarters to the US? Thanks, Ericsson, I’ll never buy again from you. Second shocking message was that “Internet is too cheap” – the monthly fee for Internet is as low as going out for a Pizza but should be much more valuable. So what? I consider Internet access a public infrastructure that needs to be as cheap as possible; and in this case it is even the market regulating it, so please stop complaining. Scribes also had to abadon their business model when the printing press was invented…

Summary: some interesting talks, many boring presentations, and a shocking keynote at the end. But a good opportunity to meet people, see other perspectives and raise one’s voice. Still not sure whether we should go to Valencia, thoguh.

Stockholm – das ist für mich irgendwie Heimatstadt. Hier kommt ein Teil meiner Familie her (meine Oma – mein Opa kommt aus Skåne) und ich war in den letzten Jahren in unregelmäßigen Abständen hier. Obwohl es viele schöne Städte gibt fühle ich mich in keiner Großstadt so zu Hause wie in Stockholm – eigentlich seltsam, weit weg von den Bergen, im hohen Norden. Aber dafür mit viel Wasser und viel grün, netten Menschen und so unglaublich viel zu sehen und tun. Ich fühl mich jedenfalls wohl hier …

Der Grund warum ich diesmal da bin ist eigentlich gar nicht privat. Letzte Woche hatten wir KiWi-Meeting, organisiert von Inka in den Büros von Sun in Kista (sprich: “Schista”). Und diese Woche dann die Future Internet Assembly, eine recht unspannende Veranstaltung bei der aber wesentliche Beiträge zur politischen Ausrichtung der EU im Bereich Internet entstehen. Eigentlich eine reine Lobbying-Veranstaltung (*gähn*).

Angekommen sind wir (Steffi, Rolf, Szaby, Thomas, Mihai und ich) letzten Mittwoch. Erster Flieger von Salzburg nach Wien um 6 Uhr, und in Wien trotz völlig normaler Verhältnisse prompt den Anschlußflug verpasst (Austrian: wie kann das passieren???). Austrian war dann immerhin so nett uns unproblematisch umzubuchen auf Niki, so dass wir mit 5 Stunden Verspätung dann doch noch in Stockholm angekommen sind. Da war es dann allerdings schon fast dunkel, nicht mehr viel zu sehen. Am Abend haben wir trotzdem noch die Stadt erkundet und sind schließlich noch ins “Engelen” in Gamla Stan eingekehrt um zu testen ob das für ein KiWi Social Event geeignet ist. Das war es definitiv: die beste Rockbar Schwedens mit Livemusik und eigenem Restaurant, unbedingt besuchen! Das Engelen war schon für Weihnachten geschmückt, in der Galerie unten gibt es ein Bild vom Elch mit Weihnachtsmütze. Erste Nacht in der Offizierskabine auf dem Vandrarhem AF Chapman. Zwar im eigenen Schlafsack statt Hotel, aber besser kann man fast nicht wohnen!

Die nächsten beiden Tage war dann das KiWi-Meeting (siehe extra Post). Für diesen Beitrag bemerkenswert ist nur die lustige Episode bei der sich Rolf, Mihai und Thomas verirrt haben kaum daß man sie alleine läßt: statt der U-Bahn zurück nach Kista sind sie in Hjulsta gelandet, und das mit der letzten U-Bahn. Aber die Geschichte erzähle ich besser persönlich.

Freitag abend war ich zu Besuch bei meinem Onkel, Abendessen mit je einer Krabbe. Krabben schauen etwas erschreckend aus, schmecken aber erstaunlich gut. Und ich habe ein neues Werkzeug fürs Essen kennengelernt, kann Euch aber nicht sagen wie es heißt. Dann übernachtet über ein paar komplizierte Umwege in einer Wohnung irgendwo in Stockholm…

Samstag war dann KiWi-Stadtführung. Nachdem ich mich ein bisserl auskenne hatte ich die Ehre die KiWis vom einen Ende zum anderen zu führen: Djurgården, Gamla Stan, Kleine Bootstour, Vasamuseet, wieder Gamla Stan auf ein Bier … . Nachts gab es fliegenden Wechsel: die KiWis haben sich verabschiedet und stattdessen habe ich Georg um etwa 0:45 am Bahnhof abgeholt… Noch ein Lättöl und dann ins Bett.

Sonntag haben’s uns Georg und ich dann eher gemütlich gemacht: mit einer 3-stündigen “Lilla Skärgårdstur” inklusive schwedischem Brunch (von Hering bis Lachs) auf einem Dampfer aus den 30er-Jahren. So gut habe ich schon lange nicht mehr gegessen! Und sowohl das Schiff als auch die Tour zwischen den Inseln ist definitiv auch sehenswert. Am Abend dann nochmal eingeladen bei meinem Onkel und bei diversen Sorten Alkohol bis spät in die Nacht geratscht.

Montag und heute dann Future Internet Assembly, eher weniger spannend (siehe eigener Blogpost). Das Social Event gestern abend hat dann im Museum der Moderne stattgefunden, sehr zu Georgs und meiner Belustigung auf der Insel Skeppsholmen, direkt gegenüber unseres Vandrarhems AF Chapman. Nachdem die Tischgesellschaft eher mäßig war sind Georg und ich dann recht früh zu unserem Schiff aufgebrochen und haben noch gemeinsam ein Lättöl genossen. Die Future Internet Assembly war dann heute nachmittag vorbei. Georg ist direkt heim, ich hab mich aber – nachdem mein Flieger erst morgen geht – noch etwas mit den Kollegen aus Galway ausgetauscht und bin dann zum Shopping gegangen (Schokolade, Glögg und Bücher – was man halt so braucht). Vorhin erst noch ein paar “Stockholm by Night” Fotos machen (siehe unten). Und dann ins Kino – schließlich hat meinem Uropa das erste Kino in Stockholm gehört. Und nachdem ich inzwischen alleine bin konnte ich mir guten Gewissens einen schwedischen Film anschauen. Ist dann “Så olika” (“So verschieden”) geworden, eine sehr nette Geschichte über zwei Schwestern die sich völlig unähnlich sind, die eine seriöse Politikerin, die andere etwas verrückte Journalistin. Det var ju jätte trevligt!

Morgen geht es dann – mit etwas Wehmut – wieder zurück in die andere (erste) Heimat. Aber ich werde sicher wieder kommen. Im Sommer.

[Mit PicLens anzeigen]

 

Use Cases

The focus of the meeting was the planning of the use case evaluation that is supposed to start in December with working out the test scenarios and settings and going into real testing in March. For the Logica Use Case, Daniel proposed a scenario where a project is audited internally by an auditor and the right documents and forms need to be assembled by the project manager. The knowledge that needs to be managed in this use case is project documentation on the one hand and quality management material on the other hand. The interesting aspect in this scenario is moving back and forth between unstructured content (project documentation) and structured content (quality management material).

For the Sun Use Case, Josef described a scenario in the SunSpace intranet of Sun where a user wants to find appropriate knowledge based on different criteria. In the centre of this use case is the Community Equity implementation developed by Sun as part of the KiWi project. Community Equity adds a very interesting aspect to search: not only gives it rise to ranking of search results based on social interactions with the content, it also allows to implement a “expert finder” where a user can search for experts on a certain topic. Expertise is calculated based on the equity of contributions a person has made. Mihai presented the current state of the integration of community equity with KiWi. The backend parts work very well, and now we are starting to port the user interface parts.

In both use cases, Josef and Daniel will come up with concrete scenario descriptions in the coming weeks. I am really looking forward to it!

State of the Project

The second part (actually taking place inbetween the use cases) was the presentation of the current state of the project. Thomas started with presenting the TagIT and InterEdu applications that build on top of the KiWi platform and that are great examples for inspiration in the use cases. Klara then presented the KWQL search and query language and demonstrated its implementation inside KiWi. KWQL offers many new search options currently not available in ordinary search engines, e.g. searching for certain paragraphs or tags. Marek presented the information extraction capabilities of the system that are based on the GATE framework. On the one hand, this is used for tag recommendations, and on the other hand it is the foundation for semi-automatic annotation of content using RDFa. Jakub continued with a demonstration of the current reasoner as it is implemented inside the KiWi system and a first implementation of reason maintenance. There are still some issues to be solved, but the progress is nice. Finally, Szaby and Steffi gave short demonstrations on new features like the integration of Exhibit and of FOAF+SSL.

In summary, it is very nice to see how the different research and development strands in KiWi are now converging. Everything described above is contained in a single system and available to all applications building on top. This should not hide the fact that there is still a lot to do, however.

Dissemination

The last part of the meeting was dedicated to discussing the dissemination strategy. Inka moderated the session and split the team into two groups that were supposed to do brainstorming on academic and on public dissemination ideas. I think it worked out rather well, results forthcoming soon.:-)

Finally, Mihai gave a brief workshop on how to set up the KiWi system, particularly in combination with the new community equity implementation.

Altogether, a successful meeting from my perspective, and a great project and team to work with! Just a pity that neither Julia nor John could participate in the meeting, and that some of the other institutions were also missing.