Thanks John, you raise some interesting points. I don't suppose there is much
difference over the last 40 years when you get down to basics. (01)
I did consider UML - having watched over the last few year the developments of
MOF and ODM with the Object Management Group - however my current thinking sees
UML as something in the next phases of development of the project. I'll explain
my thinking and would welcome any thoughts on the point. (02)
The ontology will model a specific domain which is business rather than
software focused. I did mention software development in my original email as we
did see software developers as a user group but only using the ontology as a
reference source in the design stages to understand the particular business
environment. I am a bit old fashioned as my approach to this comes my
experience in the formal side of controlled vocabularies and protégé frames in
health informatics. So in this instance I see the merit in developing the
ontology free from any further constraints UML would add - it would also
require the team to learn UML to a high degree of knowledge. I am not
dismissing UML entirely as I do see it playing a useful role in the future as
the bridge to the software engineering field once the ontology has been
developed. (03)
Perhaps the wording of the final point was misleading. As mentioned earlier one
of the use cases we envisaged for software development was as a reference model
rather as part of the application. Our future thinking has involved the
question of what would the enterprise do with the ontology and that has lead to
some exploration of an ontology management system but that is something for
next year. (04)
I have explored loading a sample OWL ontology into Semantic MediaWiki with some
positive results so that does offer us one option to consider. The other things
I have been looking at recently are the JENA and KAON projects, more for ideas
and options rather than focusing on one or the other as an end point. My
preference is more towards the authoring system provided by a system like
Mediawiki as a means to exploit the ontological model, rules and create
instances in a user friendly environment. I am sure there might be other
systems to consider and perhaps you might have some thoughts on that. Also I
have yet to look at what the major system vendors - Oracle, IBM (Websphere), HP
etc. - are planning to do with ontology integration. (05)
rgds
Marc (06)
-----Original Message-----
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
Sent: 25 November 2009 03:49
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Ontology development method (07)
Marc, (08)
MIW> I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me by sharing some
> thoughts on and/or experiences of using ontological development
> methods. I am about to embark on the development of a business
> related ontology and would like to use an appropriate method to
> provide credibility and guidance to the development process. (09)
For business applications, I don't believe that there is any
difference in principle between what ontologists are doing today
and what systems analysts and database administrators have been
doing for the past 40 years. (010)
MIW> The three methods I am considering are:
> * OTK method - On-to-Knowledge
> * Methontology
> * Ushold and King (011)
I would add the UML design methodologies to that mix. I have
often noted that the main reason why the Semantic Web is still
outside the mainstream of commercial IT is that the SemWebbers
ignored the problems, tools, and methodologies that commercial
IT people have been working with over the past half century. (012)
MIW> The ontology will be developed in protégé v4 and will support
> software developers, vendors and the construction of enterprise
> knowledge bases. (013)
Protégé is useful for generating OWL, but OWL is not integrated
with what business software developers, vendors, and the people
who develop enterprise data bases and knowledge bases actually do. (014)
If you want to support business applications, you have to work
with the people who develop business applications. And you have
to make sure that your tools are integrated with their tools. (015)
John Sowa (016)
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