Proceedings

Abstract:

The Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) was established by a group of individuals for the purpose of achieving "semantic interoperability" and "semantic data integration" focused on the government sector. The SICoP seeks to enable Semantic Interoperability, specifically the "operationalizing" of these technologies and approaches, through online conversation, meetings, tutorials, conferences, pilot projects, and other activities aimed at developing and disseminating best practices. The individuals making up this CoP represent a broad range of government organizations and the industry and academic partners that support them. However, the SICoP claims neither formal nor implied endorsements by the organizations represented. The SICoP is a Special Interest Group (SIG) within the Knowledge Management Working Group (KMWG) sponsored by the Best Practices Committee of the Chief Information Officers Council, (CIOC) in partnership with the Government XML Community of Practice (XML CoP), among others. Both the SICoP and its parent KMWG serve as interagency bodies to bring the benefits of the government's intellectual assets to all Federal organizations, customers, and partners. The SICoP through the Working Group will communicate its actions and findings to the Committee, the CIO Council and its member agencies, although its main purpose to support CoP members in their efforts to make the Semantic Web operational in their agencies.

The SICoP has launched its CoP as a Structured/Support Community of Practice with advanced collaboration tools on the Internet and subject matter experts as editors. The SICoP has developed a White Paper for outreach and education consisting of three modules (Harnessing the Power of Information Semantics, Exploring the Business Value of Semantic Interoperability, and Roadmap for Operationalizing the Semantic Web) and several pilot projects that support agency needs, the E-Government Act of 2002 requirement for data integration pilot projects, and the Federal Enterprise Architectures Data and Information Reference Model (DRM).