Re: [ontolog-forum] the Zachman Enterprise Ontology

["David C. Hay" <dch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:09 AM 10/11/2011, you wrote:

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I was asked a question the other day and as I don?t think I reached a satisfactory answer  I thought I would seek more learned opinion and post the question to this board. The question I was asked was ?what does it mean when the new Zachman framework declares itself as an ontology and specifically the Enterprise Ontology? and to quote the Zachman.com website ?the Framework is the ontology for describing the Enterprise?
 
So what does something have to be to call itself an ontology and perhaps more so in the commercial sector.

I like Ed's definition: "the language has a grammar
and an interpretation of the grammatical constructs that is suitable for
automated reasoning," although being "suitable for
automation" does not mean that it has been done. 

What John has is a collection of completely different approaches to
describing the world.  The differences in perspective, represented
by the rows makes it very difficult to call the framework as a whole an
ontology.  I did attempt to produce a metamodel of a large part of
the framework a couple of years ago (Data Model Patterns: A Metadata
Map), and I suppose that metamodel could be called an ontology. 
But my experience with the framework is that only the row I have renamed
the "Architect's View" (Row Three, what John had called the
"system designer's view") produces a true, conceptual picture
of the organization.  The "business owners' views" are
multiple, overlapping, and often contradictory.   The whole
point of Row Three is to construct a coherent, single view of the
organization that encompasses all the particular business owners'
views.

 From row four down, you are describing technology, not the
business.  

In the spirit of the architect's view (and focusing on data only), I
attempted to create an enterprise ontology in my new book this year,
Enterprise Model Patterns: Describing the World.  I would
love to hear anyone's views as to whether I succeeded or not.  The
"language" involved is conceptual entity/relationship
modeling.  (OK, I bent UML to accommodate that, even though this is
not the intended use of UML. But the effect was a clean e/r model.) 
You won't be able to do inferences until the model is translated into OWL
or some such, but I believe the components required are all there.

I welcome all flavors of criticism.

Thanks!

Dave Hay


> Don?t get me wrong
> as I have a lot of respect for the work John Zachman has done and I have
> used the framework on several occasions as an aid to strategy and
> architecture.  I was unfortunately unable to say to my colleague
> that I thought it represented a formal ontology in the way I am familiar
> with.  I explained that I worked for three years on an ontology that
> had undergone over 10 years of research, testing  and construction
> in Protégé and that it was formally accepted by public bodies in the UK
> and is in active use in the health sector. There are other major
> ontologies that have undergone similar if not more effort to construct.
> Yet without that formal approach how are you able to depend upon the
> model?
>  
> So our discussion lead to several conclusions;
>  
> 1/ Perhaps the Zachman Framework is enough in itself to be called an
> ontology as why should it have to be developed with an ontology editor
> and undergo formal construction and reviews and acceptance by a public
> body (maybe it has and this is not in the public domain). It is not the
> kind of ontology developed in the science fields and used for example in
> the health sector.  Zachman International is a private company and
> thus is free to declare what it wants. 
>  
> 2/ The Zachman framework is more of a metamodel and collection of
> concepts that a company then licences the Framework to build their own
> enterprise ontology. This of course places all of the hard work on the
> company unless Zachman International plans to provide an OWL or Frames
> ontology  in the future. 
>  
> 3/ Finally, a more controversial conclusion that this is not enough and
> is more of a marketing ploy to capitalise on the increasing interest in
> the commercial sector in ontologies and the semantic web. 
>  
> Perhaps I am viewing this incorrectly and being too formal in my
> thinking. I would be grateful for any thoughts that might provide a
> better conclusion.
>  
> Thanks,
> Marc 
>  
>  
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