Complex nr. 3/2008 Ole Christian Rynning JURISTOPIA: SEMANTIC WIKI FOR LEGAL INFORMATION Senter for rettsinformatikk/Avdeling for forvaltningsinformatikk Postboks 6706 St Olavs plass 0130 Oslo Henvendelser om denne bok kan gjøres til: Senter for rettsinformatikk Postboks 6706 St. Olavs plass 0130 Oslo Tlf. 22 85 01 01 www. jus.uio.no/iri/ ISBN 978-82-7226-111-4 ISSN 0806-1912 Utgitt i samarbeid med Unipub AS Denne boken går inn i universitets- og høyskolerådets skriftserie Trykk: e-dit AiT AS Omslagsdesign Kitty Ensby Senter for rettsinformatikks utgivelser i skriftserien Complex er støttet av: Advokatfi rmaet Selmer DA Wikborg Rein & Co Lovdata PREFACE Juristopia: Semantic Wiki for Legal Information Keywords: Wiki, Topic Maps, Semantic Web, Semantic Wiki, Legal Information System, Legal Knowledge-Based System, Legal Knowledge Management Abstract This thesis presents the role of Semantic Web technology and in particular Topic Maps in the legal domain. It also presents a prototype and concerns for a system utilising these technologies and use of this particular Information Technology in the legal domain. The thesis also discusses the theoretical back- ground for such systems, and the research explores technology legal professio- nals can benefi t combining social text writing and Semantic Web technology. The thesis is supported by a Semantic Wiki, Juristopia, which has been my prototype for testing ideas, and used in discussion and reasoning on how the Information System Design components can be used together to the benefi t of legal professionals. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS What has brought me to the fi nal idea of this thesis is a series of coincidences and factors hard to describe. Initially I wished to focus on Topic Map Technology and Lovdata, the main source of Norwegian Legal Information. The aim was to aid text searching and improve “searchability” and “fi ndability” in their vast bases. This proved to be a bigger task than anticipated, and was very hard to constrain myself into a Master Thesis. This thesis is written at Department of Informatics, University of Oslo. During the last year of my thesis I was employed as a Research Assistant at the Norwegian Research Centre for Computers & Law (NRCCL), Department of Private Law. I wish to thank all the people at NRCCL for giving me the chance to work there as a Research Assistant, Jon Bing in particular for the inspiration and advice during writing this thesis. Also thanks to Gisle Hannemyr at Department of Informatics. Special thanks to my predecessor at NRCCL, Kirill Miazine, for being my sparring-partner and helping me to refi ne all my ideas. His invaluable input, feedback and shared vision on this technology have helped a lot. CONTENTS Preface ..........................................................................................................3 Abstract ...................................................................................................3 Acknowledgements .......................................................................................4 Part I .............................................................................................................9 1. Introduction ...........................................................................................11 1.1 Motivation ....................................................................................11 1.2 Problem defi nition ........................................................................11 1.3 Research Goal ...............................................................................11 1.4 Context .........................................................................................12 1.4.1 Computers & Law ...................................................................................13 1.4.2 Artifi cial Intelligence & Law ....................................................................13 1.4.3 Hyperstructures, Ontologies, and the Semantic Web ................................14 1.4.4 Legal Method ...........................................................................................14 1.5 Readers Guide ..............................................................................15 2. Method ..................................................................................................17 2.1 Research Approach .......................................................................17 2.2 Project Management and Method .................................................17 2.2.1 Solo Scrum ...............................................................................................18 2.2.2 Lean Philosophy ......................................................................................20 2.2.3 Extreme Programming .............................................................................20 2.3 Software Tools ..............................................................................22 2.3.1 Web Application Framework....................................................................22 2.3.2 Integrated Development Environment (IDE) ...........................................22 2.3.3 Software Modelling ..................................................................................23 2.3.4 Revision Control ......................................................................................23 Part II ..........................................................................................................25 3. Theory and Defi nitions ..........................................................................27 3.1 WikiWikiWeb ...............................................................................27 3.1.1 Wiki Principles .........................................................................................28 3.1.2 Wiki Criticism ..........................................................................................30 3.2 Information Systems Defi nitions ...................................................32 3.2.1 Data .........................................................................................................32 3.2.2 Information ..............................................................................................34 3.2.3 Knowledge ...............................................................................................35 3.2.4 Logics for Information Systems ................................................................36 3.3 (Legal) Information System Challenges ........................................40 3.3.1 Information Overload ..............................................................................40 3.3.2 Information Quality .................................................................................40 3.3.3 Information Manoeuvrability ...................................................................42 4. Knowledge Representation and Aquisition .............................................49 4.1 Knowledge and Inference Engines ..................................................49 4.1.1 Semantic Searches.....................................................................................50 4.2 Categorising and Classifi cation Schemes .......................................51 4.2.1 Metadata and Simple Classifi cation Schemes ............................................51 4.2.2 Keywords and Tags ..................................................................................52 4.2.3 Folksonomies ...........................................................................................54 4.2.4 Controlled Vocabularies and Taxonomies ................................................55 4.2.5 Thesauri ...................................................................................................56 4.2.6 Faceted Classifi cation ...............................................................................57 4.2.7 Graph Theory ..........................................................................................59 4.2.8 Existential Graphs and Conceptual Graph ...............................................60 4.2.9 Ontology ..................................................................................................61 4.2.10 Ontology Engineering ..............................................................................65 Part III .........................................................................................................67 5. The Semantic Web .................................................................................69 5.1 W3Cs Goals of the Semantic Web .................................................69 5.2 The Vision of a Semantic Web ......................................................71 5.3 Web Technology ...........................................................................74 5.3.1 Hypertext ................................................................................................74 5.3.2 From Machine-readable to Machine-understandable Data .......................76 5.3.3 Semantic Bits and Pieces ..........................................................................79 5.3.4 Loosely Coupled Meta-Information .........................................................81 5.4 Semantic Web Technology ............................................................81 5.4.1 Resource Description Framework and Web Ontology Language .............83 5.4.2 Topic Maps ..............................................................................................86 Part IV ........................................................................................................95