Professors Dr. Lillian Cassel and Dr. Paula Matuszek Office: (Cassel) 161 Mendel Phone (Cassel) 610 519 7341		Office hours:  Most days 10 am to 6 pm.  Call if you want to be sure I am there and free.   Snow closing number on KYW Radio is 524
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Schedule	Texts	Web pages created by class members	Grading

This schedule is incomplete at the beginning of the course and will be filled in as we determine topics of interest to class members.

Week	Date	Topic	Reading/Slides	Assignment
1	1/23	Introduction - Course Structure Expectations, Topics, An example application	Reading assignments are shown on the week when they are due.  All must be read before class begins.	For Class 2, bring a brief description of at least two topics of interest.  These will be candidates for investigation during this course.
2	1/30	XML and RDF	Chapters 2 and 3 If you know XML and/or RDF, you can skim these chapters.  If you are not familiar with these, you need to read these chapters carefully	Do exercises 2.1, 2.2, 2.5, 3.3, 3.5, 3.19, 3.21
3	2/6	Proposed topics for presentations Ontologies and Ontology Languages Protege Lab	Chapter 4	4.3, 4.4, 4.7, 4.14 (applied to domain from 3.21 perhaps), 4.17, 4.18
4	2/13	Inferences and Rules Team formation; Ongoing projects to select or to use as examples in forming a project The Computing Ontology Project	Chapter 5
5	2/20	Applications and Ontology Engineering	Chapters 6 and 7
6	2/27	Design Reviews.  All teams will present formal designs for their projects.  The class will review these together, offering suggestions and warning of perceived problems	Software Engineering Ontology
Break	3/6
7	3/13	Discussion of 3 papers previously selected and read.  Each paper will be introduced by one member of the class who is also responsible for keeping the discussion going until the topic is thoroughly explored. What will the web look like? Dan Bevis Data Management. What steps, algorithms exist ... Jeff Cavacini  Specific ontology domains, examples and servers: Pravin Paudel	What will the semantic web look like: Readings 1, 2, 3  Data Management reading Specific Ontology domain: botany reading
	3/20	Cyc -- Guest speaker, Cynthia Matuszek.   Long term experience with a real ontology project. .
	3/27	Discussion of 2 papers. Agent Search Engines; learning the semantics and ignoring garbage: Joseph Behnken Semantic Analysis of URLs (Finding a course website by URL analysis, for instance Bryan Teng   See week 7. Interim report of project status by 2 teams.  Formal presentation by the team of the current status and plans for the project.  Prototype demonstrations as appropriate. (Teams that do not include on of the discussion leaders.) Clark, Diaz, Peek Bevis, King	Semantic Agents Reading - Concept Map Semantic Analysis Readings: 1,2,3,4  - Concept Map Software Engineering Ontology Computing Ontology  Software Engineering Ontology Computing Ontology
	4/3	Discussion of 2 papers.  Eric Clark: Web of trust project.  Permissions, security, encryption Adrian Diaz:  Censorship, Intellectual Property See week 7.  Remaining interim reports. Cavacini, MacConnell Paudel, Raheja, Teng See week 9.	Web of Trust reading Censorship, IP reading
	4/10	Discussion of 3 papers. Natalie MacConnell:  Machine learning for ontology development Tim Peek:  Specific ontology and Semantic Web languages and tools Paula Matuszek:  TBA See week 7	Machine Learning Reading
Easter	4/17	Easter Break, no class.  Time to work on projects
	4/24	Discussion of 3 papers William King: Alternatives to the W3C model What are the alternatives to having "special tags"?  Just make search more intelligent? Jaideep Raheja: Data management.  What steps, algorithms exist for retrieving,  deleting, updating tags. Boots Cassel: TBA
	5/1	Conference style presentation of projects Attendance and active participation by all students at all sessions required  Abstracts of presentations will be available at least one week ahead of time.  There will be demonstrations of the working projects, and questions, suggestions from the audience Project Presentation:  Software Engineering Ontology.  Eric Clark, Adrian Diaz, Tim Peek Project Presentation:  TBA
	5/8	Conference style presentation of projects continues Attendance and active participation by all students at all sessions required  Abstracts of presentations will be available at least one week ahead of time.  There will be demonstrations of the working projects, and questions, suggestions from the audience Project Presentation:  TBA Project Presentation:  TBA

Web pages created by teams:

Text

A Semantic Web Primer.

Grigoris Antoniou and Frank van Harmelen

The MIT Press.  2004.  ISBN 0-262-01210-3

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Grading
Your performance will be assessed based on regular, active participation in and contribution to the class discussions; some homework assignments , a team project that you will design and implement; several class presentations of varying length. I prefer not to have examinations unless it seems necessary for the integrity of the course.

Here is a starting point for a grading plan:
Grades available are A, B, C and F, with + / - options on the A, B, C grades.

1.  Do everything that is required for the course (submit every assignment on time, complete and correct), attend every class and participate actively. ===> B
2.  Do less than what is required, grade goes down.  The amount depends on how much is neglected.
3.  Do more than what is required, the grade goes up.  Again, the amount of increase depends on the degree of excellence of the work.

        Examples of extra effort (others are possible):

1. Contribute to the class beyond being present and participating.  For example, initiate discussions, follow up on questions that come up and report back later, bring up an interesting news article related to the course topics, etc.
2. Do more than the basic requirement in each project.  For example, include additional functionality that enhances the project.  Please note, extra features do not count if the basic requirements are not met. Including features that reflect your understanding of theory aspects of the course is another example of a strong project that would earn credit beyond the basic score.