With semAuth we provide a lightweight tool to enable end users to play with the idea of semantic authoring. while looking for a text representation at hand which allows for appropriately structuring text and knowledge, we found that we cannot use old fashioned WYSIWYG office writer applications. Instead we decided to rely on another sufficiently established knowledge technology: In order to represent texts and semantics we foster in depth the mindmapping approach.

The basic idea of semAuth is simple:

  • The very content of a text, i.e. it's headings, paragraphs, lists, tables, references etc., is maintained in the text nodes of a mindmap
  • Common text structures are communicated via "one character"-edge tagging. Arbitrary XML structures can be communicated via iconic tagged free text edges (c.f. example in the next section).
  • Semantic meaning is communicated via iconic node tagging.

The power of semAuth arises from a well defined (and well evaluated) selection and combination of these two tagging systems. In distinguishing (textual) edge annotations and (iconic) node annotations we have two annotation principles at hand which are in principle rather independend from each other. However, we can yield benefit in combining edge and icon annotations properly. In effect we have full control over how narrowly we tangle text structure and text semantics.

In effect we have a lightweight tool which generates rather different views from one single integrated representation

  • a sophisticatedly interlinked web site of content oriented html ("ordinary text") files
  • Integrated into this content oriented web site we have one "proxy page" for each ontology object. Semantic links between semantic objects embedded into ordinary web pages are mediated by such proxy pages.