https://www.insight-centre.org/content/collaborative-approach-metadata-management-internet-things-linking-micro-tasks-physical Presented at CollaborateCom 2013 ABSTRACT: There has been considerable efforts in modelling the semantics of Internet of Things and their specific context. Acquiring and managing metadata related to the physical devices and their surrounding environment becomes challenging due to the dynamic nature of environment. This paper focuses on managing metadata for Internet of Things with the help of crowds. Specifically, the paper proposes a collaborative approach for collecting and maintaining metadata through micro tasks that can be performed using variety of platforms e.g. mobiles, laptops, kiosks, etc. The approach allows non-experts to contribute towards metadata management through micro tasks, therefore resulting in reduced cost and time. Applicability of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a use case implementation for managing sensor metadata for energy management in smallbuildings.

1.  Copyright 2010 Digital Enterprise Research Institute. All rights reserved.
Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH FOR METADATA
MANAGEMENT FOR INTERNET OF THINGS
Umair ul Hassan, Murilo Bassora, Ali H. Vahid, Sean O’Riain, Edward Curry
Digital Enterprise Research Institute
National University of Ireland, Galway
First International Workshop on Internet of Things
Austin, Texas, USA
C-IOT 2013

2. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Agenda
 Paper Overview
 Motivation
 Architecture
 Task Assignment
 Implementation
 Experiment
 Summary
2

3. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Paper Overview
 Motivation
 Internet of Things (IoT) based systems gather data about things and
their environment
 Metadata describes things as well as their context and environment
 Dynamism Problem
 Changing environment and context renders metadata invalid
 Acquisition of metadata is difficult and expensive
 Contribution
 A collaborative approach for metadata acquisition and management
through non-experts
 Use location and availability information of crowds to assign tasks
3

4. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Architecture
 Our focus
 Data Management for IOT
 Task Management for IOT
4

5. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Data Management for IOT
 Three types of information
 Sensor observations data
 Metadata about sensors and its
context
 Data processing rules
 Rate of change for above
information
5

6. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Task Management for IOT
 Middleware to access
crowds
 Core functionality
 Task Assignment
 Task Presentation
 Quality Assurance
6

7. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Task Assignment
 Location and availability information enables assignment
of task to appropriate person
 Two method of task assignment
 Task Pull
 Task Push
7

8. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Task Assignment: Pull
 Link tasks with “things” using QR code
 QR code represents a URL
 URL renders task in appropriate browser
8

9. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Task Assignment: Push
 Use location and availability information to route tasks
 Track sensor location data submitted by crowd
 Assignment tasks related to submitted location
information
9

10. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Implementation
 Use case
 Energy Management System for small commercial buildings
 Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI)
 130 Occupants
 22 Office Units
 Deployment
 14 CoAP sensors
 Customer Web Application
10

11. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Screenshot
11

12. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Linked Dataspace
 A dataspace supports coexistence of heterogeneous
energy data sources
 Linked Data to overcome interoperability issues through
Web standards
 Linked dataspace for Energy Intelligence (LEI)
 Micro Tasks -> Incremental Metadata Improvement
 Our collaborative approach supports the incremental
improvement paradigm of dataspaces
12

13. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Building Energy Data
 Observations
 Metadata
13
{
"sensorId": "coap_sensor_001",
"timestamp": "2013-07-14 19:43:37",
"reading": "25",
"type": "temperature",
"unit": "C"
}
{
"sensorId": "coap_sensor_001",
"sensorName": "DERI CoAP Sensor 1",
"location": "r112"
"platform": "desk"
}
{
"roomId": "r112",
"wing": "2nd-floor-south-wing",
"lights": 5,
"windows": 2,
"heaters": 2
}

14. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Micro Tasks
Task Description Assignment Method
Sensor Location
This task requires participants to specify
the location of sensor
Task pull based on QR code
Room Lights
This task asks participants to specify
number of fluorescent light installed in the
room
Task push based on per-son
location
Room Heaters
This task asks participants to specify the
number for heaters in the room
Task push based on per-son
location
Room Windows
This task asks participants to specify the
number of windows in the room
Task push based on per-son
location
14

15. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Experiment & Results
 Deployed system with no sensor locations and rooms
data
 Building occupants received email to find sensors and
scan QR codes
 Accuracy of crowd submitted data
15
Task Accuracy
Sensor Location 85.71%
Room Lights 100%
Room Heaters 83.33%
Room Windows 100%

16. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Observations
 Proposed approach is simple
 Results indicate positive potential application
 Simple user interface and short completion time of tasks
is important for non-expert contribution
 Future Work
 More use cases
 Large scale study
 Crowd motivation
16

17. Digital Enterprise Research Institute www.deri.ie
Further Reading
U. Ul Hassan, M. Bassora, A. H. Vahid, S. O'Riain and E. Curry, “Collaborative
Approach for Metadata Management for IoT: Linking Micro Tasks with Physical
Objects,” in First International Workshop on Internet of Things, 2013.
http://deri.ie/users/umair-ul-hassan
17
First International Workshop on Internet of Things
Austin, Texas, USA
20 October 2013