ontolog-forum
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [ontolog-forum] Paper on how to build your first ontology

To: "[ontolog-forum]" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: marijane white <marijane.white@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:23:39 -0800
Message-id: <CAKWi4E36tV91rAtphAs78mRWZQXHBe82rw8W9nOCLn+UzVjiyQ@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 3:18 PM, Rich Cooper <rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dear Ontologizers,

On this forum, we have occasionally tried to
construct small example ontologies for
illustrative purposes, and occasionally for
practical purposes.  Here is a paper that may be
of interest to others on the forum:

http://protege.stanford.edu/publications/ontology_
development/ontology101-noy-mcguinness.html
"Ontology Development 101: A Guide to Creating
Your First Ontology"
By Natalya F. Noy  and Deborah L. McGuinness
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305
noy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx   and    dlm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


But the paper is truly naïve in its claims.  One
particular quote stood out to me glaringly:

               Separating the domain knowledge
from the operational knowledge is another common
use of ontologies. We can describe a task of
configuring a product from its components
according to a required specification and
implement a program that does this configuration
independent of the products and components
themselves (McGuinness and Wright 1998). We can
then develop an ontology of PC-components and
characteristics and apply the algorithm to
configure made-to-order PCs. We can also use the
same algorithm to configure elevators if we "feed"
an elevator component ontology to it (Rothenfluh
et al. 1996).

I find this assertion amazingly naïve, though
commonly held among ontologists it seems.  More
acknowledgements of the historic data about such
reuse should be made any time this kind of claim
is made.

The historic data shows that such reuse is not
generally effective in practice.  The better
approach is to design a more generic algorithm
(i.e., the object oriented version)  in the first
place, and then to forecast the cost, schedule and
difficulties of applying that algorithm to new
areas.

It is unfounded to claim that the PC configuration
algorithm would necessarily have similar
requirements to the elevator configuration
algorithm.  History shows that it won't; stating
the problem in a single sentence doesn't make the
problem simple.

Rich, you might go back and reread that paragraph you quoted, I don't think it is nearly as naïve as you suggest.  To my eyes, it pretty clearly describes designing and implementing a generic product configuration algorithm first, then designing different product domain ontologies to feed to it.  I don't see any reference to domain-specific configuration algorithms.


-marijane, who is going back to lurking.

_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/  
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/  
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/ 
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J    (01)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>