(See paper for details: http://attempto.ifi.uzh.ch/site/pubs/papers/semwiki2009_kuhn.pdf )

1. How Controlled English can
Improve Semantic Wikis
Tobias Kuhn
University of Zurich
Fourth Workshop on Semantic Wikis (SemWiki) 2009
Heraklion, Greece
1 June 2009

2. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 2
Introduction
 Idea: Using controlled natural language as a general
interface language for semantic wikis
 Attempto Controlled English (ACE) is a controlled natural
language, concretely a subset of English
 Can be translated automatically and unambiguously into
various logical notations, e.g. frst-order logic, OWL, SWRL
 AceWiki is a semantic wiki engine that uses the controlled
natural language ACE.
 Because the articles in AceWiki are written in ACE, they
are formal and human readable at the same time.

3. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 3
Complexity
 ACE scales very well in respect to complexity:
C
O
M
P
L
E
X
I
T
Y
...
...

4. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 4
AceWiki Interface

5. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 5
Predictive Editor

6. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 6
Usability Experiments
 Two small usability experiments that test AceWiki
 20 subjects / 6 subjects
 Task: Collaborative creation of a knowledge base using
AceWiki
 Results:
 78%–81% of the sentences were correct and sensible
 61%–70% of them were complex (containing negations,
implications, disjunctions, or number restrictions)
 Creation of a correct sentence every 5–6 minutes
 Defnition of a new word every 5–7 minutes

7. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 7
Understandability Experiment:
ACE versus MLL (Manchester-like language)

8. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 8
Evaluation: ACE versus MLL
 ACE was understood better, within shorter time, and was
liked better by the subjects than MLL!
p-values obtained by
Wilcoxon singed rank test:
0.003421
1.493e-10
3.24e-07

9. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 9
Conclusions
 Controlled English can give semantic wikis a very natural
interface.
 Controlled English can support a high degree of expressivity.
 AceWiki is usable by untrained persons.
 Controlled natural languages like ACE are more
understandable than comparable common formal languages.

10. Tobias Kuhn, SemWiki 2009, Heraklion, Greece 10
Thank you for your attention!
Questions/Discussion