Presentation at the 5th Workshop on Semantics for Smarter Cities @ ISWC 2014 We introduce the concept of City Service Ecosystem (CSE) as digital environment for the governance of urban services. We trace the research challenges and opportunities of adding semantics to improve the management of such ecosystems, especially in relation to description, publication and retrieval of urban-related Web services. We explain the peculiarities and distinct characteristics of CSEs resulting from their relation to the city space.

1. Towards a SemanticCity Service Ecosystem
Irene Celinoand Alessio Carenini
CEFRIEL –Politecnico di Milano
via Fucini2, 20133 Milano, Italy
{firstname.lastname}@cefriel.com
Riva del Garda, 19 October 2014
5th Workshop on Semantics for Smarter Cities @ ISWC 2014

2. City Service Ecosystem
City Service Ecosystem Digital environment in which City Services live
Coordinated and independent Governanceof the City Services
Different stakeholders
Legal and business rules
Coopetition (cooperation and competition)
Strong connection with a spatio-temporal context
Services related and insisting on a physical area
Service consumption dependent on the timing and possible co- occurrences of events
How should such a CSE be shaped and organized?
How can semanticssupport the life-cycle of City Services?
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 2 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014

3. City Services
City Services
From public bodies (e.g. social services)
From utilitiesand privatesector(e.g. electricity, water, transport, telecommunication)
From thirdsector(e.g. non-profit, mutual aid, cooperatives)
From citizensthemselves (e.g. grandparents taking children to school) Servicedoes NOT mean WebService
A City Service does not necessarily have a digital counterpart
A City Service is not necessarily supplied via Web
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 3 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014

4. Semantics for City Services Semanticscan support the governance of a CSE
Especially if machine-readablesemantics!
Semantics can intervene and prove useful throughout the entire City Service life-cycle Descriptionof City Services
Distinguishingcharacteristicsof services Publicationof City Services
CSE governanceprocess Retrievalof City Services
Exploitationof servicesby citizens
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 4 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014

5. Describing City Services (1)
Different models to describe services exist
“Good old”Semantic Web Service models (e.g. WSMO, OWL-S) & some more recent efforts (e.g. MSM, Hydra)
Designed for Web-based services GoodRelations& Schema.org
For services offered through the Web (e.g. e-commerce) IPASmodel (Italian Public Administration Service)
Specific to public bodies
…
Existing models differ for scopeand level of detail
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 5 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014
M. Castelli, M. Comerio, M. Cremaschi, «Towards the Definition of Value-added Services for Citizens: a New Model for the Description of Public Administration Services», IJMIT 4(1), 2013

6. Describing City Services (2)
What’s the best way to describe City Services?
Fit for purpose!
Specificity of cities Spatio-temporal context: where and when a service is offered
Specificity of citizens
Citizen profile
Citizen context
In our SPAC3 project, we follow a bottom-up approach to describe City Services offered by municipalities Existing services of Milano and Bergamo
Different nature of service (informative online services, transactional online services, at-the-counter services, etc.)
Different target citizens(individual vs. family, child vs. adult, person vs. association)
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 6 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014

7. Publishing City Services (1)
A CSE governance process is needed!
Who is responsible for publication? Public bodies example: Milano Famiglie
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 7 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014
http://www.milanofamiglie.it/

8. Publishing City Services (2)
Who is responsible for publication? Private bodies example: E015with a coopetitionapproach
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 8 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014
http://www.e015.expo2015.org/

9. Publishing City Services (3)
Who is responsible for publication? Mixed approach
Public bodies, for public services
Private and third sector, for private services
Potentially also citizens, for social/community services
Governance board, to manage CSE life-cycle (approve add, access, update, removal of City Services)
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 9 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014
http://www.spac3.eu/

10. Retrieving City Services Service Retrieval != Web Service Discovery
Because a service is not necessarily a Web service
Because there is a human being looking for a service Applicationsof City Service retrieval Browsing & Searching
A citizen proactively looks for a City Service
Personalized recommendations
A matchmaking process retrieves relevant City Services and notifies them to the interested citizens
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 10 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014

11. Recommending City Services Semantic matchmakingto find correspondences between service description and citizen context
What’s in a citizen context? Personal context: who you are, what your interests are Socialcontext: your family, your friends Temporalcontext: what is on your calendar Spatialcontext: proximity to home/office, vicinity to events/appointments in your calendar
[ anSWERSrecommender for personal/social context-based recommendation D. Dell'Aglio, I. Celino, D. Cerizza: Anatomy of a Semantic Web-enabled Recommender System, 4th Intl. SMR2 Workshop, 2010 ]
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 11 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014

12. Challenges for a CSE Building a CSE
Involving all stakeholders
Agreements and coopetition
Coverage of City Services Feeding a CSE
Governance process
Participants to the entire City Service life-cycle Running a CSE
“Closing the loop” with citizens (e.g. if services are not online, how can a CSE know if a citizen actually used a specific service?)
I. Celino, A. Carenini - Semantic City Service Ecosystem @ S4SC Workshop 12 Riva del Garda, 2014/10/19 © CEFRIEL 2014

13. Thanks for your attention! Any question?
Irene Celino –CEFRIEL, Politecnico di Milano
email: Irene.Celino@cefriel.it–web: http://swa.cefriel.it
Slides at: http://bit.ly/sem-cse
Acknowledgment: this work was supported by the SPAC3 project http://www.spac3.eu/
co-funded by RegioneLombardia(POR-FESR 2007-2013)
I. Celino, A. Carenini – Towards a Semantic City Service Ecosystem
5th Workshop on Semantics for Smarter Cities @ ISWC 2014