The current research I am undertaking is based on the premise that new technology is adopted based on the level of tool support that is available for that technology. The list below is a partial list of the work I am currently undertaking.

 

Web Services Modeling Toolkit

The Web Services Modeling Toolkit (WSMT) is an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Semantic Web Services implemented in the Eclipse framework.The WSMT aims to aid developers of Semantic Web Services through the WSMO paradigm, by providing a seamless set of tools to improve their productivity. The WSMT focuses on three main areas of functionality:

 

Engineering of WSMO Descriptions

Creating WSMO Ontologies, Web Services, Goals and Mediators is not an easy task and it is important that the user is guided through the process of creating these descriptions.The WSMT aims to provide equivalent functionality for creating, managing, validating and querying WSMO descriptions in the WSML formalism.We also recognize the fact that there exist users of different experience levels with the WSMO, WSML and WSMX technologies and aim to provide tools for both experienced and novice users alike.

 

Creation of Mediation Mappings

WSMO emphasizes the need for mediation within its conceptual model. The existence of a one-world ontology will never occur and thus it must be possible to resolve heterogeneity issues that exist when two or more groups describe the same domain with different ontologies. Within the WSMX execution environment a run-time data mediation component is used
that can perform instance transformation between a source and target ontology based upon pre-created mappings. Identification and creation of such mappings at design time is a challenging task and the WSMT aims to aid the user in this endeavor.

 

Interfacing with execution environments and external systems

The WSMO descriptions created by developers of Semantic Web Services only become useful when they can be shared and reasoned about. A Semantic Execution Environment (SEE), like WSMX and IRSIII, provides facilities for discovering, selecting, composing, adapting, mediating, and invoking Web services that are described semantically. It is crucial that access to these SEEs is provided through the IDE to enable the developer to leverage their functionalities. Other external systems, like repositories and registries for descriptions, mappings, etc. are also available and should be accessible through the WSMT.