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Comments for this entry:

1. Posted by Roger on October 29, 2007 at 7:02am

   Awesome, this is just awesome! we need more screen casts like this, this tutorials are great, thank you Cody please keep it up!!!!

2. Posted by Cody Burleson on October 29, 2007 at 5:09pm

   Thanks for the kind words. Perhaps later we can also screencast how to hook up a reasoner and do some inferencing - serious geek fun! I'll see what I can cook up.

3. Posted by Heinz on October 30, 2007 at 6:39am

   Isn't that just another rather cumbersome way to create a database application? I would be happy to learn about the difference between a conceptual data model and an ontology!

4. Posted by Yihong Ding on October 30, 2007 at 8:21am

   Cody,
   
   Screencast is terrific. It is much more worthy than one thousand words. Great done!
   
   -- Yihong

5. Posted by Yihong Ding on October 30, 2007 at 8:25am

   @ Heinz,
   
   Actually, an ontology is built upon a conceptual model. You know, conceptual model is a very general term. But ontology is a little bit narrowed to be shared specifications. I believe the next time Cody will explain in details what ontology is and why this term is so special in the realm of Semantic Web.
   
   -- Yihong

6. Posted by Cody Burleson on October 30, 2007 at 6:06pm

   I understand your point, Heinz. I did only create a data entry system in the tutorial - the point being only to introduce the Protégé software without getting into anything complex. What will be helpful is if we then use the ontology in a Semantic Web application or reason against it. That is - put it on the web; leverage the distribution and make inferences to gain new assertions.
   
   In this case, we could both have a site that imports the same ontology. Some individuals might exist on your site and some on mine. On either site, we could get a view that merges data from both sites into single views and depending on how we program the app - might also navigate from site to site to reveal the instance detail. This is just one simple example. so, your concept is on the mark, actually. It is like a database. But think of it as a seriously distributed database (a web of data).
   
   In addition to that, we also gain the power of description logics and the ability to reason on the data. What I have not yet illustrated is that the ontology is also a set of assertions upon which logic can be performed. You could, of course, program your own logic against instances from any shared information model. A reasoner, on the other hand, allows us to build a sort of logic framework into the ontology itself so that even in a highly distributed environment (such as the web), we can get new assertions based on those that have already been made and this might chain through several applications and several ontologies.
   
   This is all quite difficult to explain in a comment (I find myself wanting to write another article right here). But, I think that if you stick with the series, you are going to start to see the overt benefits. I believe that a few posts on ontology alone will be required. I am trying to provide easily digestible snippets that build up progressively to a comprehensive knowledge. And, of course I am learning more as I go also, so we are in this together. I hope you will stick with me and continue to provide your feedback; I will bake in the answers as we go.

7. Posted by Heinz on October 31, 2007 at 1:10am

   use 'Entity-Relationship Model' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entity-relationship_model) instead of 'Conceptual data model' to make it a little more concrete. I just don't see the novelty behind these Semantic Technologies.
   It is surely an advantage to use standards to describe your model and enable interoperability, but is this all?

8. Posted by mark on October 31, 2007 at 11:15pm

   Please can you repost the screencast? I'm not seeing it.

9. Posted by James on October 31, 2007 at 11:25pm

   Hi Mark,
   
   I just tried it and it's working fine. What version of Flash do you have installed?

10. Posted by Amit on November 1, 2007 at 7:04am

    Wow..that's superb. Hats off!!

11. Posted by Yihong Ding on November 1, 2007 at 9:49am

    @ Heinz,
    
    I may briefly answer your question. ER model is generally applicable to describe most of the domains. So why do we need ontologies but not just directly adopt ER models in Semantic Web? There are two major reasons.
    
    First, traditional ER models are local descriptions and it is not trivial to augment them to be generally sharable. When you declare an ER model about a domain, you make many specifications that are rational to yourself but less understandable by other people, let it alone machines. By contrast, ontology declarations are sharable.
    
    Second, many conceptual models that includes the ER model are based on the Closed World Assumption (CWA) while web ontologies are based on the Open World Assumpton (OWA). I am sorry that we have to enter a little bit more academic realm. But this distinction is very important. CWA basically assumes that whenever we derive an answer based on the provided facts but we cannot get an instant "yes" or "no" as the answer, we simply set the answer to be "no." But OWA will answer "unknown" instead of "no" in the same situation. For example, when a system processes a request "whether Yihong lives in Provo" but there is no location information stored prior, a CWA model will simply answer "no" because it cannot derive a fact that Yihong lives in Provo. By contrast, an OWA model will answer "unknown" instead of an instant "no" to the same request because it also cannot derive a fact that Yihong does not live in Provo.
    
    Don't take this distinction an easy task. It involves complex and delicate logic adjustion underneath. CWA used to be popular in database system because these databases are often local and closed. But CWA certainly is not appropriate to an open world such as the World Wide Web. This is why we have to switch to a more complex OWA. This is why we have to take ontologies but not traditional ER models.
    
    -- Yihong

12. Posted by mark on November 1, 2007 at 9:55am

    i still can't see it running the following config:
    os: win xp sp2.
    IE: 7.0.5730.11
    Flash player: 9.0.47.0
    
    it is working in firefox with latest flash download though. so put this one down to microsoft/macromedia fun and games...
    
    Fix if you are inclined, otherwise use firefox.

13. Posted by James on November 1, 2007 at 10:15am

    Thanks Mark, I didn't realize the Javascript was erroring out in IE. All part of developing on Linux I guess. It should be fixed now!
    
    James

14. Posted by Heinz on November 5, 2007 at 1:13am

    @Yihong
    
    OK, we agree on the Interoperability thing - you need a way to share your model. But going for CWA or OWA is independent from the way you formalize your model, isn't it? It is just a matter of interpretation - call it reasoning.
    

15. Posted by Yihong Ding on November 6, 2007 at 4:13pm

    @ Heinz,
    
    Surely you are right, reasoning does not equal to modeling. But the problem is that traditional ER model is not a favorite choice to share conceptual models on the Web. We need something more sharable.
    
    Back to your original question, we actually never abandon conceptual modeling. Ontology description is just conceptual modeling in a modern representation that is feasible to be shared on the Web.
    
    -- Yihong

16. Posted by dog on November 7, 2007 at 12:09pm

    
    This screencast has a problem.

17. Posted by dog on November 7, 2007 at 12:11pm

    
    This LOUDCLICKNOISE screencast LOUDCLICKNOISE LOUDCLICKNOISE LOUDCLICKNOISE LOUDCLICKNOISE has LOUDCLICKNOISE a problem. LOUDCLICKNOISE

18. Posted by James on November 7, 2007 at 1:57pm

    Thanks for the clever double post.
    
    Cody and I talked about the clicking noise and I think it should stay, and he suggested getting rid of it, so we're looking for a middle ground (like a softer click sound). I wanted to keep the sound because it lets the viewer know when a mouse click has occurred. In some instances it might not be apparent why a certain window just opened, or where to click in order to accomplish _blank_.

19. Posted by Alec Koumjian on November 14, 2007 at 7:15pm

    This was an excellent introductory tutorial. Protege looks quite interesting and I'm about to check it out personally. I enjoyed the format of the cast, but softer clicks would be nice.

20. Posted by Gary Hottinger on December 3, 2007 at 4:56pm

    Bravo! Encore! Don't think I have ever had so much fun going thru a tutorial. Will keep on playing myself but a good Xmas present (oh, what a geek I am) would be another one.
    
    Thanks!

21. Posted by Andrea on January 5, 2008 at 10:28am

    congratulation!!!
    
    I used this tutorial to show how create an onthology with protègè in my thesis about "An approch to knowledge management: the Semantic Web".
    
    Thank you so much!!
    
    

22. Posted by shu on March 5, 2008 at 7:15am

    Hi Cody, this video really serves as a great help for me to learn about Protege. I was just searching around for a simple and precise tutorial to give me a head-start on my project, and here it is! Thanks very much for your effort!

23. Posted by shu on March 5, 2008 at 7:16am

    Hi Cody, this video really serves as a great help for me to learn about Protege. I was just searching around for a simple and precise tutorial to give me a head-start on my project, and here it is! Thanks very much for your effort!

24. Posted by Reem on May 9, 2008 at 6:18am

    Thank you very much. This was of great benefit for me.. Can we have a tutorial in building semantic web services using Protege...

25. Posted by Soumya on February 21, 2009 at 12:51pm

    Thanks a lot for this screencast. Its just soooo cool. Made my work a lot easier :)

26. Posted by Niveditha on March 18, 2009 at 2:20am

    I'm sorry to tell you that i couldn't see the video... please help me to view the video... i am in need to know this topic...

27. Posted by Marcos Lambolay on March 27, 2009 at 3:10pm

    Cody: this screen cast is a great starting tutorial to Protégé. I've been reading Sem Web material for a while and there is not much practical stuff out there. Personally, I would've enjoyed a little faster pace.
    
    Marcos Lambolay

28. Posted by Luis Silva on May 5, 2009 at 3:03pm

    Hey everybody...
    
    I Love this Blog, is all a need for my thesis work :D well not all sorry im really excited about this, i have to develop an ontology to identify the structural capital that one of the research groups at my college have, rigth now im choosing the best metatool to build this ontology , and PROTEGE looks like a real nice choice! some of u know some others?
    
    i love the screencast because im not a fan of test and fail method !! to learn, althought thats the most common way when u dont know anything about this... i really want to keep in touch with u guys and for sure as soon as i started building my ontology im going to do a screencast of my thesis and send the videos to u , to make other guys learn faster!!
    
    waiting for ur comments and answers :D

29. Posted by Saminda Abeyruwan on June 30, 2009 at 2:01pm

    How can instances and concept owl files be separated out and export

30. Posted by Dominic Oldman on August 24, 2009 at 8:00am

    So useful I didn't mind the clicks at all.

31. Posted by Conor on September 17, 2009 at 2:30pm

    Thanks Cody, been looking for something like this for ages! I've been trying to follow it using Protege 4: its quite different I think but still usable, thanks to your teaching.

32. Posted by Sergi on October 8, 2009 at 1:15am

    Thank you so much. An awesome tutorial ... The first tutorial for dummies!!!

33. Posted by nasir on March 17, 2010 at 3:06am

    i want to develop a validation module for the http request. i have developed ontologies using protege and written some rules. i know how to load ontologies and rules. i know hw to query kbs using sparql. but i cant figure out that how we can achieve its implementation for real time system. if so many request like 100 are comming at a time how we can use the ontologies? if someone has knowledge plz help me.
    my e-mail address is
    nasirhaider2002@gmail.com.

34. Posted by christophe on May 17, 2010 at 2:45pm

    thank you very much !! You're my saviour

35. Posted by Deepti on July 22, 2010 at 12:04pm

    Great work ....really understood quite a lot , more videos would help.
    Once ur the best !!!

36. Posted by fathi on August 1, 2010 at 11:07am

    Thanks a lot for this screencast. But i think This screencast has a problem. I couldn't see it. please help me to view this video.
    

37. Posted by Ric Old on August 18, 2010 at 1:59pm

    You could use a visual click rather than the click sound. Cody does a very good job and a very pleasing voice for webinars.

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