Knowledge Organization in Transmedia Fictional Worlds: A Study of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Marvel Universe, and Star Wars

Currently there is no structured data standard for representing elements commonly found in transmedia fictional universes. There are websites dedicated to individual universes, however, information found on these sites separates the various formats into books, movies, comics, etc.; concentrate on only the bibliographic aspects of the material; and are only full-text searchable. We have created an ontological model that will allow researchers, fans, brand managers, and creators to search for and retrieve the information contained in these worlds based on how they are structured. We conducted a domain analysis and user studies based on the contents of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Marvel Universe, and Star Wars in order to build a new model using the Ontology Web Language (OWL) and an artificial intelligence reasoning engine. This model can infer connections between characters, elements of power, items, places, events, etc. This model will facilitate better search and retrieval of the information contained within these vast story universes for all users interested in them. The result of this project is and OWL ontology that is intuitive for users; can be used by AI systems; and has been updated to reflect real user needs based on user research.

A Knowledge-based System for Intelligent Support in Pharmacogenomics Evidence Assessment: Ontology-driven Evidence Representation, Retrieval, Classification and Interpretation

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Knowledge Workers and Associative Activity: An Examination of Knowledge Work Systems and Settings

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Competing "Host" Discourses: Appropriation of Australian Aboriginal Culture in the Tourism Borderzones

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Two Axes of Domains for Domain Analysis

This paper adds two analytical devices to domain analysis, claiming that for domain analysis to work cumulatively transferable definitions of domains must be written. To establish this definition the author provides two axes to consider: Ar- eas of Modulation and Degrees of Specialization. These axes may serve as analytical devices for the domain analyst to delineate what is being studied and what is not being studied in a domain analysis.

Terminology Cross-Domain Final Report

The InterPARES 2 Terminology Cross-Domain has created three terminological instruments in service to the project, and by extension, Archival Science. Over the course of the five-year project this Cross-Domain has collected words, definition, and phrases from extant documents, research tools, models, and direct researcher submission and discussion. From these raw materials, the Cross-Domain has identified a systematic and pragmatic way establishing a coherent view on the concepts involved in dynamic, experiential, and interactive records and systems in the arts, sciences, and e-government.The three terminological instruments are the Glossary, Dictionary, and Ontologies. The first of these is an authoritative list of terms and definitions that are core to our understanding of the evolving records creation, keeping, and preservation environments. The Dictionary is a tool used to facilitate interdisciplinary communication. It contains multiple definitions for terms, from multiple disciplines. By using this tool, researchers can see how Archival Science deploys terminology compared to Computer Science, Library and Information Science, or Arts, etc. The third terminological instrument, the Ontologies, identify explicit relationships between concepts of records. This is useful for communicating the nuances of Diplomatics in the dynamic, experiential, and interactive environment.All three of these instruments were drawn from a Register of terms gathered over the course of the project. This Register served as a holding place for terms, definitions, and phrases, and allowed researchers to discuss, comment on, and modify submissions. The Register and the terminological instruments were housed in the Terminology Database. The Database provides searching, display, and file downloads – making it easy to navigate through the terminological instruments.Terminology used in InterPARES 1 and the UBC Project was carried forward to this Database. In this sense, we are building on our past knowledge, and making it relevant to the contemporary environment.

Fringe Types and KOS Systematics: Examining the Limits of the Population Perspective of Knowledge Organization Systems

We find ourselves, after the close of the twentieth century, looking back at a mass of responses to the knowledge organization problem. Many institutions, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification (Furner, 2007), have grown up to address it. Increasingly, many diverse discourses are appropriating the problem and crafting a wide variety of responses. This includes many artistic interpretations of the act and products of knowledge organization. These surface as responses to the expressive power or limits of the Library and Information Studies institutions (e.g., DDC) and their often primarily utilitarian gaze.One way to make sense of this diversity is to approach the study from a descriptive stance, inventorying the population of types of KOS. This population perspective approaches the phenomenon of types and boundaries of Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS) as one that develops out of particular discourses, for particular purposes. For example, both DDC and Martianus Capella, a 5th Century encyclopedist, are KOS in this worldview. Both are part of the population of KOS. Approaching the study of KOS from the population perspective allows the researcher a systematic look at the diversity emergent at the constellation of different factors of design and implementation. However, it is not enough to render a model of core types, but we have to also consider the borders of KOS. Fringe types of KOS inform research, specifically to the basic principles of design and implementation used by others outside of the scholarly and professional discourse of Library and Information Studies.Four examples of fringe types of KOS are presented in this paper. Applying a rubric developed in previous papers, our aim here is to show how the conceptual anatomy of these fringe types relates to more established KOS, thereby laying bare the definitions of domain, purpose, structure, and practice. Fringe types, like Beghtol’s examples (2003), are drawn from areas outside of Library and Information Studies proper, and reflect the reinvention of structures to fit particular purposes in particular domains. The four fringe types discussed in this paper are (1) Roland Barthes’ text S/Z which “indexes” a text of an essay with particular “codes” that are meant to expose the literary rhythm of the work; (2) Mary Daly’s Wickedary, a reference work crafted for radical liberation theology – and specifically designed to remove patriarchy from the language used by what the author calls “wild women”; (3) Luigi Serafini’s Codex Seraphinianus a work of book art that plays on the trope of universal encyclopedia and back-of- the book index; and (4) Martinaus Capella – and his Marriage of Mercury and Philology, a fifth century encyclopedia. We compared these using previous analytic taxonomies (Wright, 2008; Tennis, 2006; Tudhope, 2006, Soergel, 2001, Hodge, 2000).