computer science

Open Semantic Framework

Open Semantic Framework is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Open Semantic Framework rather than just read about it. In short: The Open Semantic Framework (OSF) is an integrated software stack using semantic technologies for knowledge management. It has a layered architecture that combines existing open source software with additional open source components developed specifically to provide a complete Web application framework.

Key takeaways

Open Semantic Framework belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Open Semantic Framework to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Open Semantic Framework from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Open Semantic Framework (OSF) is an integrated software stack using semantic technologies for knowledge management. It has a layered architecture that combines existing open source software with additional open source components developed specifically to provide a complete Web application framework. OSF is made available under the Apache 2 license. OSF is a platform-independent Web services framework for accessing and exposing structured data, semi-structured data, and unstructured data using ontologies to reconcile semantic heterogeneities within the contributing data and schema. Internal to OSF, all data is converted to RDF to provide a common data model. The OWL 2 ontology language is used to describe the data schema overlaying all of the constituent data sources. The architecture of OSF is built around a central layer of RESTful web services, designed to enable most constituent modules within the software stack to be substituted without major adverse impacts on the entire stack. A central organizing perspective of OSF is that of the dataset. These datasets contain the records in any given OSF instance. One or more domain ontologies is used by a given OSF instance to define the structural relationships amongst the data and their attributes and concepts. Some of the use applications for OSF include local government, health information systems, community indicator systems, eLearning, citizen engagement, or any domain that may be modeled by ontologies. Documentation and training videos are provided with the open-source OSF application.

History Early components of OSF were provided under the names of structWSF and conStruct starting in June 2009. The first version 1.x of OSF was announced in August 2010. The first automated OSF installer was released in March 2012. OSF was expanded with an ontology manager, structOntology in August 2012. The version 2.x developments of OSF occurred for enterprise sponsors in the period of early 2012 until the end of 2013. None of these interim 2.x versions were released to the public. Then, at the conclusion of this period, Structured Dynamics, the main developer of OSF, refactored these specific enterprise developments to leapfrog to a new version 3.0 of OSF, announced in early 2014. These public releases were last updated to OSF version 3.4.0 in August 2016.

Architecture and technologies

The Open Semantic Framework has a basic three-layer architecture. User interactions and content management are provided by an external content management system, which is currently Drupal (but does not depend on it). This layer accesses the pivotal OSF Web Services Archived 6 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine; there are now more than 20 providing OSF's distributed computing functionality. Full CRUD access and user permissions and security is provided to all digital objects in the stack. This middleware layer then provides a means to access the third layer, the engines and indexers that drive the entire stack. Both the top CMS layer and the engines layer are provided by existing off-the-shelf software. What makes OSF a complete stack are the connecting scripts and the intermediate Web services layer. The premise of the OSF stack is based on the RDF data model. RDF provides the means for integrating existing structured data assets in any format, with semi-structured data like XML and HTML, and unstructured documents or text. The OSF framework is made operational via ontologies that capture the domain or knowledge space, matched with internal ontologies that guide OSF operations and data display. This design approach is known as ODapps, for ontology-driven applications.

Content management layer OSF delegates all direct user interactions and standard content management to an external CMS. In the case of Drupal, this integration is tighter, and supports connectors and modules that can replace standard Drupal storage and databases with OSF triplestores.

Web services layer This intermediate OSF Web Services layer may also be accessed directly via API or command line or utilities like cURL, suitable for interfacing with standard content management systems (CMSs), or via a dedicated suite of connectors and modules that leverage the open source Drupal CMS. These connectors and modules, also part of the standard OSF stack and called OSF for Drupal, natively enable Drupal's existing thousands of modules and ecosystem of developers and capabilities to access OSF using familiar Drupal methods. The OSF middleware framework is generally RESTful in design and is based on HTTP and Web protocols and W3C open standards. The initial OSF framework comes packaged with a baseline set of more than 20 Web services in CRUD, browse, search, tagging, ontology management, and export and import. All Web services are exposed via APIs and SPARQL endpoints. Each request to an individual Web service returns an HTTP status and optionally a document of resultsets. Each results document can be serialized in many ways, and may be expressed as either RDF, pure XML, JSON, or other formats.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Open Semantic Framework

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Open Semantic Framework claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Open Semantic Framework before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Open Semantic Framework ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Open Semantic Framework

In research: Open Semantic Framework appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Open Semantic Framework in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Open Semantic Framework is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Free content management systems, Free software programmed in PHP, Knowledge management, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Open Semantic Framework outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Open Semantic Framework” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Open Semantic Framework in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Open Semantic Framework means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Open Semantic Framework out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Open Semantic Framework in simple terms?

Why does Open Semantic Framework matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Open Semantic Framework?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Open Semantic Framework.