... as to the subject question, the OntologySummit community actually tried to answer it during OntologySummit 2010 ... check out the Communique and deliverable from that year (link available from the above page.)
It’s
the “Ontology Summit 2014”, a series of Ontology Summits
that go back to 2006, and is not just an Ontolog effort. The
co-organizers are: Ontolog, NIST, NCOR, NCBO, IAOA &
NCO_NITRD. The theme this year is: Big Data and Semantic Web
Meet Applied Ontology.
I am sure many of you have been asked one of the following
questions over the years:
1. What is an Ontologist?
2. Are you an Ontologist?
3. Do you have an Ontologist in your organization?
Anyway, in our buzzword (and buzz-phrase) oriented world, we
do have to provide answers to these kinds of questions, for
sure. Unfortunately, being referred to as an Ontologist
(circa. 2014) doesn't deliver the same kind of sizzle that's
associated with
Data Scientist.
Bearing in mind our buzzword laden reality, what's a
meaningful and zeitgeist friendly alternative for
Ontologist, bearing in mind we know it doesn't imply
Data Scientist ?
Personally, I've always considered Ontologists to be Data
Artists due to the artistry that goes into creating a
usable ontology aimed at enabling conceptual views over
heterogeneously shaped data :-)
Why is this important?
Bridging Ontologies, Big Data, Open Data, Linked Open Data,
and the Semantic Web is a strategic goal of the 2014 ontolog
conference series.