The School of Computer Science at The University of Manchester is looking for individuals to participate in a funded OWL tutorial that covers the basic language concepts in OWL using our well-known “Pizza Tutorial”. We will cover reasonable expenses for travel in the UK (or monetary equivalent), subsistence and up to 2 nights of accommodation to a maximum of £500. The tutorial is gratis and will take place at the University of Manchester on the 3rd and 4th March 2016.

From those who attend the tutorial we will seek volunteers to take part in two studies. In the first attender’s interaction with Protégé will be logged. In doing so, we will learn how people go about authoring ontologies. In the second study attenders will use a prototype ontology authoring environment that allows ontologists to test their ontology against a series of “authoring tests” based on competency questions for the ontology. Taking part in the study will not interfere in your learning objectives as no additional tasks have to be carried out and data will be collected silently. We will award volunteers a £10 Amazon voucher for those that take part in each study (£20 if they take part on both). Not taking part in a study or opting-out from it won't be detrimental to your funding and participation in the tutorial. If you decide to participate and change your mind later on there won't be any consequences with regard to your participation in the tutorial except for (1) losing the entitlement to the voucher and (2) log files removal.

This two-day introductory ‘hands-on’ workshop aims to provide attendees with both the theoretical foundations and practical experience to begin building OWL ontologies using the Protégé-OWL tools. Attenders will take Manchester's well-known "Pizza tutorial" (see http://owl.cs.manchester.ac.uk/tutorials/protegeowltutorial/). This tutorial will cover the main conceptual parts of the Web Ontology Language (OWL) through the hands-on building of an ontology focusing on pizzas and their ingredients. A series of practical exercises take attenders through the process of: forming competency questions that the ontology should support; conceptualizing the toppings found on a pizza; the entry of this classification into the Protégé environment; the description of many types of pizza. All this is set in the context of using automated reasoning to check the consistency of the growing ontology and to use the reasoner to make queries about pizzas.

Aims
The aims of this tutorial are to:

• Understand the use of ontologies.

• Gain experience in basic ontology engineering techniques such as knowledge elicitation and use of competency questions.

• Understand statements written in OWL.

• Understand the role of automated reasoning in ontology building.

• Build an ontology and use a reasoner to draw inferences from that ontology.

• Gain experience in the Protégé ontology environment.

• Gain experience in using competency questions to drive ontology building and assessment.

Registration and Further Information
There are 15 places available on this tutorial. Registrants will be given places on a first come first served basis. A reserve list will be formed from those people that express an interest in attending the tutorial, but are not automatically assigned a place. Attenders will be reimbursed for travel within the UK (or price equivalent), subsistence and accommodation for up to 2 nights in compliance with the University of Manchester expenses policy; we will reimburse up to £500. The tutorial is gratis.

For further enquiries about the tutorial and funding email Robert Stevens (robert.stevens@manchester.ac.uk). For enquiries about the study email Markel Vigo (markel.vigo@manchester.ac.uk).