>...there are the basic quality principles:
> >
>>A quality ontology is "fit for purpose". (01)
As a decision theorist, I'm hearing utility. (02)
We have some uses in mind when we build an ontology. We measure how
well it performs for the uses we have in mind. Its overall utility
is some form of aggregation of these metrics. (03)
An ontology may be more or less useful to different people, depending
on which uses is more important to each. (04)
>
>Great. Chris Menzel said something like this
>also. Now I want to know what a purpose is. Not a
>definition, but some entries in a list of 'uses
>for ontologies'. (05)
Ontologies support interoperability of systems. (06)
Ontologies provide reference vocabularies that allow different groups
of people to understand each other's terminology and communicate
their ideas to each other. (07)
Ontologies provide precise (more or less depending on degree of
formalization) definitions for terms, and thus help communities to
develop a clearer understanding of the theories and concepts that
underly their domains. (08)
Ontologies provide vocabularies for consumers to search on to
identify providers who can meet their needs. Ontologies provide
vocabularies for providers to advertise their capabilities. You
might consider this a special case of interoperation, but I think
it's worth calling out separately. (09)
Ontologies provide a vocabulary for describing the data in your
database, the capabilities of your software, the kinds of analyses
you can do. (010)
Ontologies support maintainability and reusability of code, by
explicitly representing semantic information that formerly was buried
in undocumented data structures. (011)
Ontologies support understandability, transparency, and
accountability of software by opening up formerly buried aspects of
algorithms to the light of scientific debate. (012)
That's a few off the top of my head. There are more, but it's bed
time on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. (013)
>OK. Can I translate 'support a purpose' into
>'entails a set of sentences'? (014)
Only by doing some degree of violence to the intent. (015)
>...so a good ontology provides
>insight as well as mere description? (016)
Oh, YES!!! (017)
It is common wisdom in the operations research and decision support
communities that the purpose of a model is insight, not an answer.
Giving the answer (42, of course!) without insight about what it
MEANS in the context of the problem faced by the model's consumer is
worse than useless. (018)
Same goes for ontologies. (019)
Enough of these wee-hours ramblings. (020)
Kathy (021)
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