ODR, ontologies, and web 2.0

Online communities and institutions create new spaces for interaction, but also open new avenues for the emergence of grievances, claims, and disputes. Consequently, online dispute resolution (ODR) procedures are core to these new online worlds. But can ODR mechanisms provide sufficient levels of reputation, trust, and enforceability for it to become mainstream? This contribution introduces the new approaches to ODR and provides a description of the design and structure of Ontomedia, a web-based platform to facilitate online mediation in different domain

Linking the semantic web to ODR: the Ontomedia project

Despite the conceptual vagueness of definitions, both Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 are opening up for ever-growing communities of users new forms of online interaction and customization of information. In this article we explore some of the critical features of Web 2.0 and 3.0 developments applied to different conflict domains, and then present some of the basic components of the Ontomedia platform. The Ontomedia project aims to provide mediation experts and users with a semantically enriched mediation platform where they are able to interact, mediate, and retrieve useful information on related cases in an effective and friendly way

Introduction : bringing a new vision to online dispute resolution

This article offers a brief overview of the state-of-the-art ODR domain by presenting the contributions to the field made by the participants in this volume. It also examines some of the challenges that ODR face at present with regard to interoperability and the new evolutions of the Web 2.0. Finally, it also considers the need for a new vision of ODR that, while keeping pace with the technological developments of the Web, situates the users the center of the paradigm

The ontomedia project : ODR, relational justice, multimedia

More than ever, the Web is a space of social interaction. Recent trends reveal that Internet users spend more time interacting within online communities than in checking and replying to e-mail. Online communities and institutions create new spaces for interaction, but also open new avenues for the emergence of grievances, claims, and disputes. Consequently, online dispute resolution (ODR) procedures are core to these new online worlds. But can ODR mechanisms provide sufficient levels of reputation, trust ,and enforceability so as to become mainstream? This contribution introduces the new approaches to ODR with an emphasis on the Ontomedia Project, which is currently developing a web-based platform to facilitate online mediation in different domains

Relational justice: mediation and ODR through the World Wide Web

ODR means "Online Dispute Resolution". Dialogue, negotiation and mediation are coming back as sources of contemporary law. We introduce in this paper two concepts and two related projects. We define the concepts of "relational law" and "relational justice". And, at the same time, we describe how to put them in place from a social and technological point of view. Therefore, we introduce two concrete applications: (i) the Catalan White Book on Mediation, a large project to assemble the required social and legal knowledge to draft a general statute on mediation (Catalan Government); (ii) the Ontomedia Project, a semantically-driven platform allowing end-users to negotiate and mediate their conflicts in several domains (family, commerce, environment, health care, administration…). The paper describes the state of the art of ODR services, and proposes some strategies for legal electronic institutions. A middle-out theoretical approach and a mediation core-ontology are briefly described. We situate these two projects within the next generation of Semantic Web services, and the so-called Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 developments

Modeling expert knowledge in the mediation domain: a middle-out approach to design ODR ontologies

In this paper we describe the steps taken to model expert knowledge within the mediation domain as the basis for the design of the Mediation Core Ontology (MCO), of which we also offer a first outline of its present stage of development. MCO is created from scratch by eliciting practical knowledge from mediation experts to identify the basic working concepts of the domain. MCO offers initial support towards knowledge acquisition and reasoning and, in later steps, will serve as a general basis for the development of different mediation domain and sub-domain ontologies to be used by the ONTOMEDIA mediation platform, currently also under development

A model of air transport passenger incidents and rights

This paper describes a representation of the legal framework in the air transport passenger's rights domain and the foremost incidents that trigger the top of consumer complaints ranking in the EU. It comprises the development of a small network of three ontologies, formalisation of scenarios, specification of properties and identification of relations. The approach is illustrated by means of a case study based in the context of a real life cancelled flight incident. This is part of an intended support-system that aims to provide both consumers and companies with relevant legal information to enhance the decision-making process

A note on validity in law and regulatory systems (position paper)

The notion of validity fulfils a crucial role in legal theory. The emerging Web 3.0 opens a new landscape where Semantic Web languages, legal ontologies, and the construction of Normative Multiagent Systems are built up to cover new regulatory needs. Conceptual models for complex regulatory systems shape the characteristic features of rules, norms and principles in different ways. This position paper outlines one of such multilayered governance models, designed for the CAPER platform

A method for defining human-machine micro-task workflows for gathering legal information

Series : Lecture notes in computer science, ISSN 0302-9743, vol. 8929With the growing popularity of micro-task crowdsourcing platforms, new workflow-based micro-task crowdsourcing approaches are starting to emerge. Such workflows occur in legal, political and conflict resolution do-mains as well, presenting new challenges, namely in micro-task specification and human-machine interaction, which result mostly from the flow of unstruc-tured data. Domain ontologies provide the structure and semantics required to describe the data flowing throughout the workflow in a way understandable to both humans and machines. This paper presents a method for the construction of micro-task workflows from legal domain ontologies. The method is currently being employed in the context of the UMCourt project in order to formulate in-formation retrieval and conflict resolution workflows.This work is part-funded by FEDER Funds, by the ERDF (Eu-ropean Regional Development Fund) through the COMPETE Programme (operation-al programme for competitiveness) and by National Funds through the FCT (Portu-guese Foundation for Science and Technology) within the project FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028980 (PTDC/EEI-SII/1386/2012). The work of Nuno Luz is supported by the doctoral grant SFRH/BD/70302/2010

Algunas líneas de investigación en gestión del conocimiento jurídico : web semántica, ODR y derecho relacional

En este artículo se plantean algunas de las lecciones aprendidas en la elaboración de ontologías jurídicas y sistemas para la web semántica, con especial atención a la creciente participación de los usuarios en la red. El artículo contiene una breve descripción de los modelos de informática jurídica documental de Akoma Ntoso y MetaLex. Un tercer modelo lo constituyen las formas de Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), tecnologías del acuerdo y mediación en línea que permiten plantear también el desarrollo de formas de derecho relacional. Los proyectos del Instituto de Derecho y Tecnología (UAB-IDT) siguen esta última vía.I refer in this paper some of the learned lessons in the construction of legal ontologies and systems for the Semantic Web, with a special eye on the increasing end-user participation on the web. The Akoma Ntoso and MetaLex models of legal information documentation are briefly described. It is argued that, in addition to these models, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) forms, agreement technologies and online mediation foster the development of what it may be defined as relational law. The latter is the research line followed by the projects carried out at the UAB Institute of Law and Technlology