Page 61 - ITU Journal - ICT Discoveries - Volume 1, No. 2, December 2018 - Second special issue on Data for Good

ITU JOURNAL: ICT Discoveries, Vol. 1(2), December 2018

PROCEDURAL METADATA: STRUCTURED GUIDE FOR DATA INTEROPERABILITY IN SUPPORT OF
WEB OF THINGS

Nakyoung Kim, Hyeontaek Oh, Jun Kyun Choi
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Abstract – This paper presents the concept of a new metadata type, defined as procedural metadata,
which enhances automation and interoperability of the web of things. As data-driven days have arrived,
data has become ubiquitous, and it is considered as a new valuable asset for the fourth industrial
revolution. Accordingly, systems and services are expected to intelligently make decisions and perform
tasks by interacting with environments through sensing and actuation. This requires accumulated
knowledge of procedures to be described in human and machine-readable ways. Procedural metadata is
proposed as the means to provide the common descriptions on composable procedures of not only
individual devices but also smart systems as a whole, based on existing data models and ontologies. As a
type of metadata, procedural metadata does not affect the original formats, models, vocabularies,
ontologies, etc. of data, devices, and systems. However, it rather provides additional information on
common descriptions of logic and workflows to make decisions and perform tasks. This paper describes the
proposed concept with examples, principles, and discussions. For a proof of concept it is implemented in
Matlab based on a scenario analysis in a smart-home environment. Then, its potential and feasibility to be
applied to the web environment are given.

Keywords – Internet of things (IoT), metadata, procedural metadata, semantic web of things (SWoT),
web of things (WoT).

data, platforms, and application domains.
1. INTRODUCTION Accordingly, the web provides technologies that
support the interoperability of IoT. WoT is based
As the Internet of things (IoT) era has arrived, data on the idea that connected devices are accessible
is now ubiquitous and considered as a new via the web to enable interoperability across
valuable asset for the emerging fourth industrial heterogeneous IoT platforms and application
revolution. However, data is currently domains [3], [4]. Furthermore, SWoT brings
overwhelming in not only its volume but also its semantic web and WoT together to associate
diversity, especially due to the wide-varying nature semantically annotated information to web-
of IoT [1]. Generated from heterogeneous sources, enabled IoT [5], [6].
manifold data is collected, stored, processed,
transported, shared, and used across different To support interoperability and common
platforms and application domains. Due to the understandings of data on the web, many web data
heterogeneity, it is extremely hard to achieve formats, models, vocabularies, ontologies, and
interoperability, and the potential value of data is other technologies have been introduced. Not only
getting suffocated by its own volume and diversity. the traditional information and communication
Accordingly, the needs for efforts to homogenize technology (ICT)-related industries but also other
the data ecosystem and empower semantic non-ICT industries, such as energy, transportation,
linkages are rising. health, geography, etc., are developing their own
ones. Consequently, more and more heterogeneous
Through the concepts of web of things (WoT) and data concepts, formats, models, and ontologies
semantic web of things (SWoT), enhanced from many consortia/fora and organizations are
interoperability in IoT ecosystems can be fulfilled investigated without a consensus of the future data
on the web, an information space consisting of data eco-society. Therefore, interoperability remains as
resources [2]. The web has been developed for the urgent issue in the process of moving towards
data semantics in order to embrace heterogeneous a future data-driven eco-society [7].

© International Telecommunication Union, 2018 39