1.
The GoodRelations Ontology: Making Semantic
Web-based E-Commerce a Reality
http://purl.org/goodrelations/
Martin Hepp
mhepp@computer.org / http://www.heppnetz.de
Martin Hepp
1
mhepp@computer.org

2.
E-Commerce on the Web
World Wide Web
Enterprise 1 Enterprise 2
Structured Structured
Data on Data on
Products and Products and
Services Services
(purchased (purchased
and offered) and offered)
Martin Hepp
2
mhepp@computer.org

3.
E-Commerce on the Semantic Web
World Wide Web
Enterprise 1 Enterprise 2
Structured Structured
Data on Data on
Products and Products and
Services Services
(purchased (purchased
and offered) and offered)
Product Specifications: Type of Product, Features etc.
Details of the Offering: Price, Eligible Regions, etc.
Martin Hepp
3
mhepp@computer.org

4.
2001-2008:
Semantic Web & E-Commerce:
Lots of Papers, Limited Impact
Martin Hepp
4
mhepp@computer.org

5.
Use Cases
• Commodity We sell
some
We sell some
instances of
We sell a
particular
We clean and
repair
offers
sleeping the Marmot used instance sleeping
bags. sleeping bag of the Marmot bags.
model 1234. sleeping bag
• Services
model 1234.
offers
• Product
model data
interchange
Martin Hepp
5
mhepp@computer.org

6.
Required Ontologies
• An ontology for product
types and features
• by function, usage, or nature
• An ontology for offer
specifications
• An offer is basically a relation
between
• an agent,
• a set of objects,
• a set of property rights,
• an audience, and
• a set of terms and conditions.
Martin Hepp
6
mhepp@computer.org

7.
eClassOWL and GoodRelations
• eClassOWL instanceOf eclassowl:TVSet
foo:myTVSet
• GoodRelations
foo: MillerInc goodrelations:offersToSell foo:myTVSet
Martin Hepp
7
mhepp@computer.org

8.
within the domain name space of local dealers.
2.2 Competency Questions
Next, we specify the scope and purpose of the GoodRelations ontology usingcompetency
questions, which is a standard technique in ontology engineering methodologies [8]. The
questions were discussed with stakeholders, namely the developers of recommender
Competency Questions
systems, operators of Web shops, and other domain experts.
CQ1: Which retrievable Web Resources describe an offer
• {to sell | to provide the service of | to repair | to maintain | to lease out | to dis-
pose}
• {a concrete individual | some unknown individuals} of
• a {given good | given service | spare part for a given good | consumables and
supplies for a given good} described by a {type of good | specific make and
model}
• that meet certain requirements on {properties | intervals for properties}
• for which the offering party accepts a given method of payment and
• provides a certain method of delivery
• to {consumers | retailers}
• in a given {country | region}?
CQ2: For which time frame is the Part
+ Upper Ontology offer valid?
CQ3:Hepp
Martin Which types of customers are eligible?
8
mhepp@computer.org
CQ4: Which are the eligible customer regions?
• Overview
CQ5: Which shipping / delivery methods are available?

9.
Requirements / Features
• Support for ranges and units of measurements
• Support for all common business functions, like sell, lease, dispose, repair, etc.
• Compatible with eclassOWL and unspscOWL
• Supports all ISO 4217 currencies
• Supports defining eligible regions
• Suits both for explicit instances, product models, and anonymous instances
• Supports common delivery and shipping methods
• Supports accepted payment methods
• Offerings can be constrained to certain eligible business entities
• A warranty promise, i.e., its duration and scope can be specified
• Different prices for different types of customers or for different quantitities can be expressed
• Charges for certain payment or delivery options can be specified; the latter also individually per
region.
• Support for product bundles, for all kinds of units of measurements (2 kg butter + 2 cellphones for €
99 would be no problem).
• Compatible with international standards: ISO 3166, ISO 4217, UN/CEFACT, eCl@ss, and UNSPSC
• Minimal requirements on reasoner support - any RDF-S-style reasoner, OWL DLP, DL, or ter Horst
reasoner will work.
• Supports price ranges, list prices, time-zones, EAN/UCC/UPC codes, GLN/ILN, and DUNS
Martin Hepp
9
mhepp@computer.org

10.
Data, Standards, Ontologies
Martin Hepp
10
mhepp@computer.org

11.
Core Conceptual Structure
• Business Entities
• Offerings
• Products and Services
• Web Resources
Martin Hepp
11
mhepp@computer.org

12.
Domain Capture
Martin Hepp
12
mhepp@computer.org

13.
Design Considerations
• Suitable Ontology Language
• Ranges and Intervals; Datatypes
• Models, Classes, Instances
• Existential Quantification
• N-Ary Relations
• Licensing
Martin Hepp
13
mhepp@computer.org

14.
Suitable Ontology Language
Requirements: Approach: Use OWL DL
syntax for RDF-S elements, i.e. a
• Must work with Semantic
Web infrastructure as subset of the closure of OWL
available today DLP:
•
owl:Ontology
Must work with lightweight, owl:Class
RDFS-style reasoners
owl:ObjectProperty
• Combining the ontology
with ontologies or
owl:DatatypeProperty
knowledge bases in OWL rdfs:subClassOf
DL should not lead to a rdfs:subPropertyOf
model beyond DL (e.g. rdfs:comment
OWL Full)
rdf:datatype
• Avoid layering problems
between RDFS and OWL
rdf:type
Martin Hepp
14
mhepp@computer.org

15.
Ranges and Intervals
hasValue rdfs:SubPropertyOf hasMaxValue, hasMinValue
Martin Hepp
15
mhepp@computer.org

16.
Models, Classes, Instances, and Existential Quantification
gr:ProductOrService
rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:subClassOf
rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:subClassOf
gr:ActualProductOrServiceInstance gr:ProductOrServicesSomeInstancesPlaceholder
toy:TVSet
rdf:type gr:ProductOrServiceModel
rdf:type
ex:mySony100
rdf:type rdf:type
rdf:type
rdf:type
ex:TheSony100Model Problem: Inferring
Requirement: Use the
feature defaults for product
same library of features for
instances from the product
models and products
ex:SomeSony100s model if specified.
Martin Hepp
16
mhepp@computer.org

17.
Product Bundles
Martin Hepp
17
mhepp@computer.org

18.
N-Ary Relationships
ProductOrServiceInstance
typeOfGood
includesObject amountOfThisGood
Offering TypeAndQuantityNode Quantity
hasUnitOfMeasurement
Unit of Measurement
Martin Hepp
18
mhepp@computer.org

19.
License
• Goal: Give adopters certainty about
permanent, royalty free access to the ontology
• Approach: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
license.
Martin Hepp
19
mhepp@computer.org

20.
Reusing Existing Consensus
• Lot of pre-existing consensus
• Countries
• Currencies
• Locations
• Two basic approaches for reuse
• As ranges for literal values
• Replication as ontological instances
Martin Hepp
20
mhepp@computer.org

21.
Minimal Example 200.0
quot;C62quot; quot;quot;EURquot;quot;
gr:hasCurrencyValue
gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement gr:hasCurrency
http://www.electronics.com gr:Sell
UnitPriceSpecification_1
rdfs:seeAlso gr:hasBusinessFunction gr:hasPriceSpecification
GoodRelations
Ontology
gr:offers gr:includesObject TypeAndQuantity
BusinessEntity_1 Offering_1
Products and Node_1
Services Ontology
gr:amountOfThisGood
Particular Offering gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement
(Data) 1.0 gr:typeOfGood quot;C62quot;
quot;CMTquot;quot; 30
gr:hasValue
gr:hasUnitOfMeasurement
toy:hasScreenSize
QuantitativeValueFloat_1 MySony100TVSet
rdf:type rdf:type
toy:TVSet
gr:ActualProductOrServiceInstance rdfs:subClassOf
gr:ProductOrService
Martin Hepp
21
mhepp@computer.org

22.
Pick-up in Industry and Academia
• Smart Information Systems
• ebSemantics
• Yahoo! SearchMonkey
• Virtuose Sponger Catridges for Amazon, eBay,
and others expected
• etc.
Martin Hepp
22
mhepp@computer.org

23.
Diffusion Strategy
• Make Creating GoodRelations
Data Easy
• Make Creating GoodRelations
Data Attractive
• GoodRelations Annotator
and Validator
• Search Engine Vendors
• Exporters for popular Web
• Recommender Systems
Shops (using Triplify) • Foster the Development of
Compatible Vocabularies
• Converters for Catalog Data
Interchange Standards • eClassOWL
• Recipes and Patterns • ebSemantics
• myOntology
Martin Hepp
23
mhepp@computer.org

24.
Client-side Rendering vs. Content Negotiation
Martin Hepp
24
mhepp@computer.org

25.
Discussion and Future Extensions
• Richer Axiomatisation?
• Disjointness Axioms etc.
• Microformats Variant?
Martin Hepp
25
mhepp@computer.org

26.
Additional Information
• Web Page
•Ontology
•Language Reference
•Primer
•Recipes
•Wiki
http://purl.org/goodrelations/
Martin Hepp
26
mhepp@computer.org

27.
References
1. Hepp, Martin: GoodRelations: An Ontology for Describing Products and Services
Offers on the Web, Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on
Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (EKAW2008), Acitrezza,
Italy, September 29 - October 3, 2008 (forthcoming), Springer LNCS, Vol 5268,
pp. 332-347.
2. Hepp, Martin: Products and Services Ontologies: A Methodology for Deriving OWL
Ontologies from Industrial Categorization Standards, in: Int'l Journal on Semantic Web
& Information Systems (IJSWIS),Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 72-99, January-March 2006.
3. Hepp, Martin: The True Complexity of Product Representation in the Semantic Web, in:
Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Information System (ECIS
2006), June 12-14, 2006.
4. Hepp, Martin: ProdLight: A Lightweight Ontology for Product Description Based on
Datatype Properties, Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on
Business Information Systems (BIS 2007), April 25-27, 2007, Poznan, Poland, in:
Abramowicz, Witold (Ed.): BIS 2007, Springer LNCS,Vol. 4439, pp. 260-272, 2007.
These and other papers are available at http://www.heppnetz.de/publications/
Martin Hepp
27
mhepp@computer.org

28.
Thank you!
http://purl.org/goodrelations/
Martin Hepp
mhepp@computer.org / http://www.heppnetz.de
Martin Hepp
28
mhepp@computer.org