7.2.2 Work Package 2 - Set-up RINNOVATE catalyst environment

Rinnovate_Index

N° of work package: 2	Set-up RINNOVATE catalyst environment
Duration in months: 8	Fundación Instituto Tecnológico de Galicia (FUNITG)

I. Description of the work:

a) Overview of the Work package:

This WP is part of the enabling phase, during which project partners prepare the methodological, operational and social conditions (a catalyst environment) for gathering a community of interest around a knowledge centre about building renovation for NZEB. It builds on requirements that should ensure a living, evolving and sustainable community of knowledge and practice capable of attracting building owners, suppliers and integrators and reinforce positive reciprocal influences about integrating NZEB targets in renovation planning.

Because of the great diversity of cases, size, use, location, it is difficult to identify, quantify and compare the impact of the range of solutions and approaches, materials and technologies that can be used or have been used. In order to reduce this problem, a grid of essential benchmarking information will be defined (analyzing previous projects results and the work of standardization bodies). The Directive EPDB recast will set the reference framework for translating these information scheme into available, widely used ontologies (which allow for instance to link procurement terms and compliant products across different EU regions). The concept of ZEBRA (Nearly Zero Energy Building Renovation Approach) will be elaborated.

This grid will be the common description scheme for crawling digital sources to pull together existing solutions, materials, expertise appropriate for the domain of energy performing renovations. The resulting collection will be analyzed further by RINNOVATE experts: promising and viable cases will be contacted directly and invited to join the community and provide additional information useful for semantic-rich 'search-by-example' navigation and queries. The container of these references will be the same semantic engine of WikiPedia, Semantic MediaWiki, which is proven and supported by a huge community of users and maintainers. Which ontologies should be used will be decided during the requirement definition task; possibly they will include specialized ontologies for building and construction (BC), trade, engineering and general purpose ontologies.

Following its aim to be a snow-ball starter, RINNOVATE will establish permanent links with places where existing and potential 'customers' gather, opening thematic channels or projects (e..g. YoutTube, Wikipedia) linking dynamically and gathering relevant RSS feeds and contributing to existing forums or case collections. Mash-up rules will be prepared for collecting information from different projects and services, remixing and assembling it in ways that are appropriate and useful for the users of RINNOVATE. On the other side all necessary information will be given for gathering information fron RINNOVATE and mash it up in other services and communities.

b) Description of the tasks:

2.1.- Analysis and definition of overall requirements

This task is conducted analyzing what is needed by each group of users and functions. For this purpose users are grouped as:

• owners
  • public (public buildings, social housing)
  • private (homeowners, owners of commercial/industrial building used by themselves, owners of multiple residential buildings, owners of multiple commercial buildings)
• suppliers
  • suppliers of works and services
  • suppliers of products and equipments
• integrators (of energy performance solutions in renovation for achieving NZEB, which is ZEBRA concept, i.e.,nearly Zero Energy Building

in Renovation as a standard Approach)

• • energy experts and consultants
  • architects and designers
  • full contractors (including ESCO and Energy Performance Service companies)

Functions are grouped as:

• technical collaboration functions;
• end-user functions (including access to advice services);
• automatic connections and exchanges among computers.

Guiding criteria are: stable, proven status, multiple platform availability, compliance to standards, users support, open licensing, FLOSS preferred,

Subtasks are:

• T2.1.1-Requirements for technical collaboration
• T2.1.2-Requirements for end-users and social participation
• T2.1.3-Requirements for machine to machine collaboration

2.2.- Definition of ZEBRA benchmarking information sets

This task will define a set of basic parameters that allow to characterize a problem, solution, product, method in relation with NZEB orientated renovations. The structure of this set will follow the DCMI (Dublin Core Metadata Initiative) structure. The same set will be used by the crawl and scrap agents searching existing metadata when searching and exploring web resources. These agents will be configured to sweep periodically the web following specific search patterns. The agents will be configured to be able to collect metadata and fill a description card of the resource instructed to do so. An open standard crawl generator will be used, which contains modules for crawling, indexing and searching, with parser for recurring structures.

Subtasks are:

• T2.2.1-Definition of ZEBRA minimalistic benchmarking energy performance information sets
• T2.2.2-Development of crawl and scrap agents

2.3-Development of ZEBRA engine and augmented reality interfaces

In this task the basic structure of RINNOVATE knowledge roundabout will be developed. In fact it will be basically a work of configuration following the specifications coming out of the requirements analysis work. The semantic engine will be implemented taking advantage from existing implementations of knowledge roundabout in other domains (e.g. health, wikilex, etc.). This means basically that no new software will be written: instead existing applications will be reconfigured for our purpose. Ontology maintenance and gardening will be done online with existing SMW tools of offline with the Protegé tool.

Mediated reality interfaces will be implemented linked to the semantic layer of RINNOVATE/ZEBRA knowledge base. If users find RINNOVATE useful and easy-to-use they will probably return. Case descriptions and search for solutions in sectors as building and construction, energy efficiency and renwable energy sources/technologies show inherent complexity. If the scope of description or investigation goes across domains and languages, as in the case of renovation projects orientated to NZEB, uncertainty and ambiguity spread. The good news is that visual interfaces may help. Some are already available. For instance sketch-up plugins for Google building creation. In this task we will simply create a basic ZEBRA visual navigation interface (the paradigm is that this interface should allow to simply describe an environment taking pieces from existing examples and combining these pieces together anew): in so doing links will connect to the underlying ontology and to concepts. Nothing new to invent, because the method is already used for training in repair services. RINNOVATE will only deliver the essential to start the snow-ball: community driven solutions will hopefully grow on top of these basic tiles.

Subtasks are:

• T2.3.1-Development of ZEBRA semantic engine (SMW based)
• T2.3.2-Development of ZEBRA ER (augmented reality) interfaces

2.4-Populate ZEBRA with contents from existing solution sources

The set of websources related to building renovation and RUE/RES/RET domain will be crawled by automated software agents searching for essential information required to work with the shared basic meanings of the RINNOVATE community. A first result will be a directory searchable with a uniform schema for ZEBRA purposes. The collection will be screened by RINNOVATE expert partners who will ask further information for those items deemed of value. Owners of data will be able to add semantic rich annotations. It will be up to them to update the additional information layer, while the basic schema will be automatically updated regularly. The final result will be an information roundabout of high practical value for all parties. Subtasks are:

• T2.4.1-Crawl, scrap, collect and filter data from the web

• T2.4.2-Transform data and load the knowledge base

2.5-Establish exchange channels with "friend" social places

Basically there will be one-stop-shop interface to relevant groups and webplaces. Anyone can bypass this centre, simply it is cheaper, quicker and more fitting when focusing on planning renovation for achieving NZEBs (e.g. it will allow public bodies to hit the interested community from their buyer profile when publishing RES/RUE/renovation tenders). You can imagine it as a mixup of Wibiya bar and RSS feed. These section of tools will be based on available FLOSS software and embedded in the RINNOVATE site. A predefined group of dynamic channels will be established with EU initiatives (e.g. BuildUp and Mamagenergy network) gathering relevant RSS feeds and contributing to existing forums or case collections (e.g. ePractice), pulling information from buyers profiles (for public contract tenders) and eGoverment specialized networks (e.g. EU initiatives OSOR and SEMIC). Opening thematic YouTube channels, social bookmarking groups, facebook and tweeter profiles will be part of this policy, as well as Mash-up rules will be prepared for collecting information from different projects and services, remixing and assembling it in ways that are appropriate following the requirements. Similarly documentation and stubs will be prepared for allowing other services to gather information from RINNOVATE and mash it up in other services and communities. Subtasks are:

• T2.5.1-Screening of social places with which establishing bridges
• T2.5.2-Define and implement ZEBRA mash-up rules

IIa. Outputs of this work package (apart from deliverables):

• 1 ZEBRA minimalistic benchmarking information set
• 1 common schema for the description of cases
• Zebra augmented reality interface is available for the community
• 1 ZEBRA knowledge base populated with 1200 cases and solutions, searchable with an enhanced reality interface
• Channels established with 12 social environments (i.e.YouTube, EUTube, Google Books, Scribd, Google Maps, Google Earth, Facebook, eBay, Getafreelancer, Tweeter, Wikipedia projects, etc.)

IIb. Deliverable of this work package:

• D2.1 Overall Requirements Report
• D2.2 ZEBRA Concept Manifest
• D2.3 Handbook for using interfacing and linking with the ZEBRA knowledge base and its tools (with specific section for owners, experts and suppliers)
• D2.4 Comprehensive report of ZEBRA knowledge base cases (downloadable)

III. Distribution of tasks of each partner in this work package (Award criterion 5):

Partner	Task(s) for this partner organisation	Related to Task N°
FUNITG	Development of crawl and scrap agents; Development of ZEBRA semantic engine (SMW based); Development of ZEBRA ER (augmented reality) interfaces; Crawl, scrap, collect and filter data from the web; Transform data and load the knowledge base; Screening of social places with which establishing bridges; Define and implement ZEBRA mash-up rules.	T2.2; T2.3; T2.4; T2.5
INEGI	Definition of ZEBRA minimalistic benchmarking energy performance information sets	T2.2
CST	Requirements for technical collaboration; Requirements for end-users and social participation; Requirements for machine to machine collaboration	T2.1

Major other specific costs:

[List major other specific cost – if any - by task and describe them shortly]

• Set-up of RINNOVATE catalyst environment: Translation of D2.1 ZEBRA Concept Manifest pp.60 EN-ES-IT (€ 1.500,00)

• Set-up of RINNOVATE catalyst environment: Translation of D2. 2 Handbook for using interfacing and linking with the ZEBRA knowledge base and its tools (with specific section for owners, experts and suppliers) pp. 240 PT-EN-IT (€ 6.000,00)

Major subcontracts:

[List major subcontracts and shortly describe the tasks covered]

WP 2 do not foresee subontractors.

Mandatory phrase to keep: The subcontractors identified / to be identified were / will be selected following the provisions of Article II.9 of the Grant Agreement on competitive grounds on the basis of best value for money.