Ontology Summit 2007 - Ontology, Taxonomy, Folksonomy: Understanding the Distinctions

Ontology Summit 2007 - Objective  

Building upon the successful model of last year's UpperOntologySummit, co-sponsors from NIST, Ontolog, MITRE, NCOR, NCBO, NLM/NIH, W3C, TagCommons, IBM Research and others (a developing list) are initiating a second summit during the spring of 2007.

We are hoping to convene key players in both research and applications who profess in developing or facilitating the evolution of "ontologies" and structures that help model semantics, to join us in our Ontology Summit 2007 activity to help everyone understand the distinctions between Ontology, Taxonomy, Folksonomy and all the terms in between that various communities employ to label those "ontologies" or "structures."  

The challenge, this year, put before the various constituencies and communities involved, is to clarify what everyone means when they use the term "ontology" or when they refer to these semantic structures. Our objective is to define and agree to a systematic means of categorizing the many kinds of things that fall broadly within the "ontology" spectrum. By doing so, the research, development and Internet communities would have a better way of comparing, combining and mapping ontologies to one another (apples to apples). The range of what people call "ontologies" covers folksonomies, taxonomies, thesauri, conceptual models, and formal logic-based models to name just a few flavors.

Community Survey - Project ID: ontology-summit-2007-2h

Our theme for OntologySummit2007 is: "Ontology, Taxonomy, Folksonomy: Understanding the Distinctions"

As Dr. Steve Ray of NIST explained during our 18-Jan-2007 Ontology Summit launch meeting, rather than to "bludgeon the world into using a single definition", we want to "provide a means of identifying what kind of "ontology" you are talking about.  

At our organizing committee conference call, when the above "tag line" was adopted, Dr. Olivier Bodenreider (NLM) drew a rather appropriate analogy by saying, "we want to be USGS*, and not the UN*." ... Yes, conveners of OntologySummit2007 should look at themselves as cartographers, not peace keepers!  [* USGS = U.S. Geological Survey; UN = United Nations.]

We don't plan to go around telling people how they should use the term "ontology". Instead, we are planning to solicit input from people who could represent perspectives of different constituencies that are involved in developing or facilitating the evolution of "ontologies" and structures that help model semantics. We want these people (experts, practitioners and informed layman alike) to provide input from the perspectives of their constituencies.

... Hence this survey. Thank you, in advance, for your input and for sharing with us your insight on the matter.

Please send this in by end-of-day Tue 27-Mar-2007.

Remarks:


1RespondantInfo.
Name*:
Organization:
Phone No:
E-mail*:
2Affiliated. I am affiliated with the following constituencies/communities (please check all that apply)
Formal ontology communities
Semantic Web communities
Linguistic communities
Concept Map community
Topic Map community
SEARCH communities
Web 2.0 communities
Thesauri community
Taxonomy communities
Metadata communities
XML communities
Applications Development, Software Engineering and Information Model communities
System Architecture communities
Biomedical communities
Standards Development communities
Other (please specify)

2aRepresenting. I represent the perspective of the following constituency/community (please pick one; if you want to provide input from more than one perspective, please return a separate form):

Formal ontology communities
Semantic Web communities
Linguistic communities
Concept Map community
Topic Map community
SEARCH communities
Web 2.0 communities
Thesauri community
Taxonomy communities
Metadata communities
XML communities
Applications Development, Software Engineering and Information Model communities
System Architecture communities
Biomedical communities
Standards Development communities
Other (please specify)

2bSpecificCommunity - ref: a list of the various "constituencies" (communities and sub-communities) that constitute our stakeholders.

Specific community or sub-community I am affiliated with:
2cExpertiseSelfAssessment. With respect to the perspective you are representing and providing input from, I am a/an:
informed layman
practitioner
expert
other (please specify)

3aOntologyValueWhat 'value' does 'ontology' or 'ontological engineering' bring to your constituency (or sub-constituency)?


3bOntologyIssues What are the 'issues' being encountered in bringing 'ontology' or 'ontological engineering' into your community?


3cOntologyProblems.  Can you state 'specific problem(s)' that help is needed on?


3dCorrespondingSolutions.  Can you suggest (technology or community) solution(s) to the issue(s) mentioend above?

4.   In this section, we provide 8 sub-sections (one for each "term" or "artifiact"), where  we seek you input on:
Three examples on how to fill this section (parts A & B, in particular) out:
(... you may choose to do it like anyone of these examples in any of the 8 sub-sections)

Enter a "Term" only
Enter a "Term" and an "Artifact" belonging to it
Enter an "Artifact" only
Term - ontology
Gloss / definition - An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization (Tom Gruber/1993)
Reference (citation/url) - http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html
Term - metadata
Gloss / definition - data about data
Reference (citation/url) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metadata


Artifact (name/version) - Dublin Core
- Artifact Ref. (url) - http://dublincore.org/
Artifact (name/version) - FOAF ("Friend-of-a-fried") vocabulary
specification
- Artifact Ref. (url) - http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
CalledAnOntology:  5 - almost always CalledAnOntology:  3 - sometimes CalledAnOntology:  4 - quite often

4aGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

(A.1) Term
(A.2) Gloss / definition
(A.3) Reference (citation/url)
(B.1) Artifact (name/version)
(B.2) - Artifact Ref. (url)
4a1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4a2AdditionalRemarks(C)  Please provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

4bGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:
Term
Gloss / definition
Reference (citation/url)
Artifact (name/version)
- Artifact Ref. (url)
4b1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4b2AdditionalRemarksPlease provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

4cGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:
Term
Gloss / definition
Reference (citation/url)
Artifact (name/version)
- Artifact Ref. (url)
4c1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4c2AdditionalRemarks.  Please provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

4dGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:
Term
Gloss / definition
Reference (citation/url)
Artifact (name/version)
- Artifact Ref. (url)
4d1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4d2AdditionalRemarks.  Please provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

4eGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:
Term
Gloss / definition
Reference (citation/url)
Artifact (name/version)
- Artifact Ref. (url)
4e1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4e2AdditionalRemarks.  Please provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

4fGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:
Term
Gloss / definition
Reference (citation/url)
Artifact (name/version)
- Artifact Ref. (url)
4f1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4f2AdditionalRemarks.  Please provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

4gGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:
Term
Gloss / definition
Reference (citation/url)
Artifact (name/version)
- Artifact Ref. (url)
4g1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4g2AdditionalRemarks.  Please provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

4hGlossary. Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:
Term
Gloss / definition
Reference (citation/url)
Artifact (name/version)
- Artifact Ref. (url)
4h1CalledAnOntology. On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?
1 - totally unlikely
2 - rarely
3 - sometimes
4 - quite often
5 - almost always

4h2AdditionalRemarks.  Please provide additional remarks on the cited artifact below (how it is applied, issues encountered, improvement wish list, etc.):

5ConfirmParticipation.

WHEREAS,
I agree that my name can be listed as a 'convener' of OntologySummit2007
I will consider endorsing the OntologySummit2007 communique. Please send it to me for review when it is ready. I will confirm my endorsement after the review.
I confirm that you may list my organization as a 'co-sponsor' for OntologySummit2007 (details below).

5aCoSponsor.

Organization Name:
Link (url) to Logo

This online questionnaire was developed  by  Peter Yim for the "Ontology Summit 2007" initiative.