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Dear Mark and David,
War of Ontology Worlds: Mathematics, Computer Code, or Esperanto? Andrey Rzhetsky, James A. Evans
Abstract. The use of structured knowledge representations—ontologies and terminologies—has become standard in biomedicine. Definitions of ontologies vary widely, as do the values and philosophies that underlie them. In seeking to make these views explicit, we conducted and summarized interviews with a dozen leading ontologists. Their views clustered into three broad perspectives that we summarize as mathematics, computer code, and Esperanto. Ontology as mathematics puts the ultimate premium on rigor and logic, symmetry and consistency of representation across scientific subfields, and the inclusion of only established, non-contradictory knowledge. Ontology as computer code focuses on utility and cultivates diversity, fitting ontologies to their purpose. Like computer languages C++, Prolog, and HTML, the code perspective holds that diverse applications warrant custom designed ontologies. Ontology as Esperanto focuses on facilitating cross-disciplinary communication, knowledge cross-referencing, and computation across datasets from diverse communities. We show how these views align with classical divides in science and suggest how a synthesis of their concerns could strengthen the next generation of biomedical ontologies.
Regarding David's idea of taking "ownership" of the wiki page and/or getting some consistency on the ontology definitions floating out there -- I'm not certain Ontolog has a mandate to do such a thing, however perhaps the IAOA ( www.iaoa.org) could oversee the development of a set of resources that could facilitate answering this recurring question of what ontologies are. The question as always are -- who would the resources making the resources be?
Best, Ali On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 8:19 AM, <marc.l.walker@xxxxxx> wrote:
Thanks for all of the comments and opinions and perhaps the position is still quite open, under some definitions it is an ontology under others it is not.
Taking Doug’s point: It doesn't fit the most standard definition of an IT ontology. It does fit a far looser definition, but that does not mean that it is useful for logical processing or the Semantic Web.
and John’s point: The prefix 'meta' is significant. The Zachman Framework is not an ontology, but a metalevel approach for defining an open-ended number of different ontologies for many different domains.
there is significant value in the framework but with a lot of work to do to make it useful for logical processing and semantic technologies. If that is the full intention in the future. There have been several projects over the last two decades looking at an Enterprise Ontology but I am not aware of anything significant since. Perhaps this might mark a turning point. If there is something to be learnt – from a commercial perspective - then clearer definitions and descriptions of purpose would help in the understand of what something like the Zachman Famework now is and how it can be better applied to improve an organisation. I guess by just changing the name it doesn’t automatically make it something different or more useful.
Rgds Marc
Actually ... could almost point everyone to Wikipedia on this one: In computer science and information science, an ontology formally represents knowledge as a set of concepts within a domain, and the relationships between those concepts. It can be used to reason about the entities within that domain, and may be used to describe the domain.
and therefore Zachman is not an ontology. It's what the most recent summit links to. Unfortunately, the link to reason then says on humans can do it:-( Also unfortunately, Formal ontology is on Wikipedia:
A formal ontology is an ontology with a structure that is guided and defined through axioms. The goal of a formal ontology is to provide an unbiased ( domain- and application-independent) view on reality. Formal ontologies are founded upon a specific formal upper level ontology, which provides consistency checks for the entire ontology and, if applied properly, allows the modeler to avoid possibly erroneous ontological assumptions encountered in modeling large-scale ontologies.
While I hate to suggest anything that might separate the Ontolog Forum participants from their marketeering friends ... 1) Why doesn't the Ontolog Forum take it upon itself to promote a replacement to Gruber's 'standard' definition with an accurate, useful one similar to above?
2) Why doesn't the Ontolog Forum take it upon itself to become editor of ontology/reasoning (computer science) on Wikipedia and maintain the new 'standard' definition there? Gruber's paper could even be marked as 'obsolete' in the references.
If opposed to Wikipedia, then somewhere more authoritative that can be linked from Wikipedia and elsewhere might do ... (e.g. a NIST ontology definition page). Cheers, David On 10/12/2011 4:54 AM, David C. Hay wrote: 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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