Programme
To achieve the objectives established, the scientific programme starts with a review of the state-of-the-art that provides a basis for discussion, proceeds with brain-storming sessions directed to the three sub-objectives defined, and concludes with the elaboration of a report with the synthesis and recommendations, accompanied by various dissemination activities.
The structure of the scientific programme includes:
1. State-of-the-art review: Current state-of-the-art and the COST members' know how on ontology building and glossaries in the domain of urban civil engineering projects (e.g. COMBINE project or previous experiences with UCE glossaries). This tasks includes the analysis and review of relevant glossaries (urban planning, architectural and technical dictionaries, and web based international thesauri developed in related expertise fields like, for instance, HEREIN ). The state-of-the art will review the applicability and relevance of existing production and industrial standards, like IFC/product model based standard or the results of the Finnish VERA research programme ( http://cic.vtt.fi/vera/english.htm). This task will include the different way of storing ontologies, for instance by studying XML extensions devoted to ontologies, and editing them (especially giving emphasis to visual editors on ontologies).
2. Definition of main research needs on UCE ontologies: Definition of main research needs regarding UCE ontologies, based on the current state-of-the-art within these sectors of activity and on the COST members' know-how.
3. Methodologies for developing UCE ontologies: Establishment of a working group (WG1) dedicated to the analysis of available ontology builders (KIF, IFF, Ontolingua, Loom, OIL etc.) and approaches (semantic networks, ontologies, topic maps ). The applicability of these techniques and approaches to the UCE domain is tested so as to provide guidance about their use. A very important methodological question we have to face is our to combine top-down (from high level concepts to urban objects) or bottom-up (from urban objects to high level concepts) approaches, since both can be used.
4. Construction of multi-lingual UCE ontologies: A second working group (WG2) is dedicated to the definition and comparison of some key urban processes, objects and actions throughout Europe, possibly based on a specific field of UCE and cross-national analysis of some common case studies. This task will build upon and develop the glossary of urban, regional and environmental planning terms established in 2004 by Calderon and Ventura.
5. Impact of ontologies upon communication between UCE actors: A third working group (WG3) will concentrate on the social and cultural implications of using ontologies in the UCE context, in the view of developing a guidance for their best implementation in real-life contexts and their improved acceptance by different stakeholders.
6. Synthesis of the contributions: Synthesis of the contributions collected from the three working groups and final definition of research priorities in the framework of the European Union.
7. Reporting, publication and dissemination: Reporting, publication and dissemination of the results inside and outside Europe in order to promote future R&D activities that allow development of ideas arising from this COST Action.
This Action is expected to provide guidance about the use of ontologies in Urban Civil Engineering domains. Information gathered during the work will be synthesised in a report, disseminated via Internet.
