Creating Web Presentation
for Observatory and Planetarium
with Topic Maps
Germany - Leipzig
17th October, 2008
University of Hradec Králové
Faculty of Informatics and Management
Martina Husáková
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Content of the presentation

Observatory in Hradec Králové

View of the original application used at the
Observatory

Topic Maps as the new solution
− Topic Maps document creation
− Web presentation creation

Final state and future of the pilot application
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Observatory in Hradec Králové

Science and research:
− performing photometric observations of variable
stars and asteroids
− astrometry of comets, study the dynamics of small
Solar system bodies

Cultural program:
− observation of the Sun or evening performance
− specialized scientific lecturers
− systematic education
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Photograph of the Observatory
4

Original application used at the
Observatory

File-manager like application written in Tcl/Tk
5

Topic Maps document creation

Development of the Topic Maps document
(TMd) was realised in diploma thesis

One of the main goals: verification feasibility
Topic Maps approach

Domain expert (final user) helped with
keeping objective accuracy of information
presented in TMd

Requirenments for the content of the TMd
were specified ...
6

Requirenments for the TMd
User´s requirements Priority
Capturing the ontology of astronomical terms high
Topics implementation high
Implementation of associations among topics to enable navigation high
External occurrences implementation medium
Defining internal occurrences medium
Defining topic names in different languages high
7

Resolution connected with
usage of the TMd

The 1st version of the TMd in editor Ontopoly
that fulfils most of the requirenments

Resolution: Topic Maps and Ontopoly is very
suitable solution for the Observatory needs

Practical usage of the TMd with OKS
Samplers for the pilot version

Resolution of the next consultation: it is
better to have own web application

Requirenments for the web application were
specified ...
8

Requirenments for the web
application based on Topic Maps
User´s requirements Priority
Intuitive navigation high
Clear organization of web pages high
Possibility to search Topic Maps elements high
Possibility to visualize Topic Maps document in expandable high
graph structure
Possibility to edit elements of the Topic Maps document from medium
web-based forms
Online presentation of the Topic Maps document high
9

Experience with Ontopoly

Ontopia Navigator Framework (ONF) was
chosen for the web application creation

At the beginning only experiments with ONF

One serious problem occured:
− Web pages created with ONF contain ID values of the
Topic Maps elements. If we modify TMd in Ontopoly,
ID values change => we have to change ID values in
web pages almost all the time

Next step → searching more suitable tool for
TMd creation
10

Next Topic Maps editors

Wandora, TMTab plugin, TM4L

LTM syntax written in NotePad was tried too,
but this way is unsuitable for the customers

TM4L editor was chosen because of:
− Intuitivenes in control over the environment
− Low price
− Installation with no sweat
− Automated testing of web sources
− And mainly: if we modify TMd, ID values of the Topic
Maps elements are steady
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Next steps ...

Detection: TMd created in Ontopoly could be
opened in TM4L (ver. 1, 2), but taxonomy was
not saved

Solution: developing TMd once more in TM4L
(ver. 2)

After some white nights, we came up to
creating web application with ONF and
TM4L ... :-)
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Web presentation creation

Developing simple web pages with ONF lies in
the use of the tolog query language

JSP web pages contain tolog queries that:
− extract relevant information from the TMd
− represent these information on the web pages

Firstly scope of the web had to be stated =>
only concepts related to selected objects of
the Solar system were taken into account

Predefined layout was chosen and adjusted
for our purposes ...
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Home page
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Topic Sun
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Czech/English
dictionary
16

Evaluation and future of the web
application

Navigation scheme and organization of pages
are clear and easy to use

It is possible to quickly detect association(s)
between topics
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Concluding words ...
„The universe is a pretty big space. It's bigger
than anything anyone has ever dreamed of
before. So, if it's just us, seems like an awful
waste of space, right?“
Carl Edward Sagan
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Thank you for your attention!
? Questions ...
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