Database and Ontology    (PIL)

Background: This is a community-driven set of activities, and is probably long overdue. On 15-Aug-2006, TatianaMalyuta (who just joined the community after participating at our 23-Jul-2006 face-to-face workshop at Stanford, brought up her request for the Ontolog community to delve into the subject of "Database and Ontologiy." An almost unprecedented flurry of online responses were received from the members. It was decided that we could systematically pursue the subject by mounting a min-series on the matter at hand. One can view this as a project, although the conversation and the learning will probably be open-ended. ... This, now, is the 'project' home page for our treatment of "Database and Ontology."    (PIM)

Dr. MatthewWest was invited to lead the effort, and did a marvelous job championing the community's collaborative exploration of the subject matter. Started out as a mini-series of monthly event, for say, about six (6) months, the effort has now spanned more than 15 months and has produced twelve (12) virtual events. To recognize this enthusiasm, we started calling this the "Database and Ontology" series (rather than "mini-series") as of 2007/Q4.    (17EJ)

In order to allow us to fully explore the landscape of the intersection between databases and ontologies, we will be inviting some vendors to join us in the effort. Under those circumstances, we will temporarily waive the community's IPR policy and accept the presentation of proprietary technology or product (under the said waiver), so that we can all get a chance to fully appreciate what the true state-of-the-art is, whether open or proprietary.    (17EK)

The Plan / The Team    (PIQ)

Meeting & Event    (Q2J)

Project Workspace    (Q2L)

Discussion    (PIN)

http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/DatabaseAndOntology/Ontology-and-Databases-Landscape--MatthewWest_20060901a.png    (Q28)

I used Matthew's landscape diagram (above) and tried to present a general functional diagram of an Information System with Ontology and Database as the main components.    (QBO)

http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/DatabaseAndOntology/Ontology-and-Databases-Landscape-MW0609011a_comment-2a_-TatianaMalyuta_20060918.png    (QBP)

I have a somewhat different feeling about some relationships between the nodes of the Landscape diagram:    (QBQ)

1. Ontology is a formal representation of Information Requirements and the relationship between these two nodes is maybe Presented rather than About.    (QBR)

2. Human Computer Interface, as well as Computer Computer Interface and different applications (e.g. integration and reuse) have to be working with ontological presentation and not with the database directly. Some of the requests may be further directed to the database.    (QBS)

Resource & Reference    (Q19)