COMP 5860M
Semantic Technologies and Applications
Lecture 8:
Practical Task on Ontology Design
John Stell after Vania Dimitrova School of Computing, University of Leeds
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In This Lecture
Ontology development methodologies
Requirements Conceptualisation
Logical model Verification & Document.
• Conduct the first two stages of the methodology
• Hotel ontology examples
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Knowledge glossaries
NEON Ontology Requirements
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Ontology Requirements (cont.)
Ontology Development Task
Problem Scenario
Hotel booking is a decision making tasks, which involves comparing alternatives and selecting the best option. Customers usually use more than one hotel booking sites, e.g. booking.com, expedia, hotels.com. Each of these sides provides online interface for booking of hotels worldwide.
However, to compare options, the user has to manually inspect the outputs generated from their search queries on the different sites. Each of the systems offers different information and search features. Comparison and search across several booking sites can be a tedious and cognitively demanding task!
Integrated hotel search portals, such as trivago, offer a unified interface for comparing hotels. For this, they need a common vocabulary (ontology) that represent the main concepts and relationships in a hotel booking domain. This vocabulary can serve as a basis for data integration and searching across all sites in a unified interface which will facilitate the decision making process.
Our task is to develop the first version of the Hotel booking ontology.
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Ontology Requirements: Our Scenario
Purpose
To provide the main vocabulary to integrate the three hotel booking sites.
The ontology can also be used in future integration of other hotel booking sites.
Intended Uses
– To compare hotel options across the integrated hotel booking sites.
– To provide the main options in the common interface to allow search through the integrated sites
– To facilitate the decision making process automating some of the tasks that users are doing manually
Intended Users
– Users of the hotel booking sites (e.g. travellers, tourists)
– Travel agencies to assist their clients
– Hotel data providers (e.g. hotels, chains) to provide data to be linked to the existing data base
– Software developers of the three hotel sites, and the developers of the integrated interface
Scope
Vocabulary (main concepts and relationships)
defining rooms & room booking; hotel types and service provided.
Location concepts and relationships will not be defined in detail (e.g. we are excluding things like country, town). Points of interests (also landmarks) will be defined at a later stage.
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Example Knowledge Sources:
Hotel sites:
– http://www.trivago.co.uk/
– http://www.travelsupermarket.com/ – https://www.kayak.co.uk/hotels
Hotel guides:
– http://www.expedia.co.uk/ – http://www.booking.com/
– http://www.hotels.com
Knowledge Sources
– http://www.hotrec.eu/
[Association of hotels, restaurants and cafes in Europe]
– See countries for hotel star rating [e.g. compare Spain, France, UK]
Hotel ontologies:
– http://ontologies.sti-innsbruck.at/acco/ns.html
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Hotel Booking Ontology: Main Concepts
Source 1: Interfaces of the three sites and other similar sites
[identify common terms for hotel booking – seed concepts]
Possible concepts include
Hotel type Hostel
Apartment Hotel B&B
Room Reservation Breakfast
Price
Room Type – single, double, family, suite
Room Occupation – one, two, three Location
Date: Check-in, Check-out
Occupants Adult Child
Hotel Rating Standard rating User rating
Hotel features
Pool, WiFi, Restaurant, Gym
Room features TV, Bathroom
Policy Cancelation Promotion
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Hotel Booking Ontology: Main Concepts
Source 2: Available guides and standards Source 3: Existing ontologies
How will these knowledge sources be useful?
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Select Main Concepts
Consider all terms in your list. Select those you wish to be included in your ontology.
You now have to check/revise the ontology scope statement. Be aware of the iterative nature of the design phase
– You would need to revisit the concept selection steps and add/change some concepts
– Include validation with domain experts
– You may also use competency questions (do you have all concepts needed to answer the competency questions)
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Example Concept List & Hierarchical Links
-Accommodation -Hotel
-Hostel
-Apartment -Price
-RegularPrice
-PromotionalPrice -Room Type
-DoubleRoom -SingleRoom -TripleRoom
-Room Occupancy -SingleOccupancy -DoubleOccupancy
-Rating -StarRating
-GuestRating
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Example Concept Glossary
Provide definitions for each concept
Concept
Definition
Source
Synonyms
HOTEL
A hotel is an establishment that provides lodging paid on a short- term basis.
Every hotel is located at some place, offers several room types , has a star rating, and has a guest rating.
http://en.wikipedia.or g/wiki/Hotel
[added by V. Dimitrova]
PLACE
Where something happens. A portion of space occupied by a person, or thing, or an activity or a process or any combination if these; Usually has an address and/or a name.
Ordnance Survey Building and Places ontology
http://www.ordnance survey.co.uk/oswebsi te/ontology/
LOCATION
(in the context of hotels)
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Example Concept Glossary (cont.)
Provide definitions for each concept
Concept
Definition
Source
Synonyms
ROOMTYPE
The room type is defined by the number of beds in the room, the number of people who stay in the room, and the price per occupancy.
V. Dimitrova, observation from booking.com
STARRATING
An European standard of hotel rating based on hotel rooms, hotel service, equipment, leisure, and arrangements to offer.
European hotel standards:
http://www.hotelstar s.eu/userfiles/files/G erman%20Hotel%2 0Classification%202 010- 2014_excl%20%20 Logo.pdf
HOTELCLASSIFICATION HOTELRATE
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Example Concept Glossary (cont.)
Provide definitions for each concept
Concept
Definition
Source
Synonyms
GUESTRATING
Subjective rating given by people who have stayed at the hotel.
V. Dimitrova, observation from booking.com & expedia & kayak
CUSTOMERRATING USERRATING
POINTOFINTEREST
A point of interest, or POI, is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.o rg/wiki/Point_of_int erest
POI
ROOM
Part of a hotel allowing staying at the hotel.
V. Dimitrova
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Example Relationship Glossary
Provide definitions for each relationship
Relationship
Definition and explanation and examples
isLocatedAt
The subject is located at the object.
Example: The Queens Hotel (subject) is located in Leeds (object)
hasRoomType
The subject has room type specified by the object.
Example: A room in a hotel can have a type (e.g. double, single, small, large, ensuite etc)
hasStarRating
The subject has star rating specified by the object.
Example: Every hotel can have a rating eg 3 stars
hasName
The subject is assigned a name specified by the object. Just the name of something
Example: An hotel has the name ”The Queens”
hasPart
The subject has part the object. A part of something
Examples: A room is part of an hotel. A course is part of a meal
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Summary
This practical example should have helped you gain an understanding of the first two phases of ontology development
– Initial phase & Design phase
– These two phases are crucial for the quality of the ontology.
Initial phase: Produces ontology specification
– Define purpose, scope, intended users and uses
Design phase: Produces ontology conceptualisation
– Define main concepts and relationships
– Compose knowledge glossaries of the main concepts and the main
relationships
Paper: Niemann, M., Mochol, M., Tolksdorf, R., Enhancing hotel search with semantic web technologies, Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 2008.
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