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Re: [ontology-summit] [Quality] Gatekeeping proposal

To: "Ontology Summit 2008" <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Ann Wrightson" <Ann.Wrightson@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 13 Mar 2008 17:37:50 -0000
Message-id: <989E1989F3130042879B902D1758421601F51CA4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I agree with the scheme below except that IMO the repository should have a 
simple version structure of its own, and expect mapping of contributed 
artefacts' versioning structure to that model, that is, record originator's 
version alongside the interoperable repository version in the metadata. A 
suitable candidate repository version structure would be linear sequences of 
supersession-versions with the ability to "fork" variants at any point (which 
could themselves have supersession-version chains). Rejoining of variants' 
supersession-version chains is problematic & should not IMO be attempted in the 
repository, though a human-readable note should be allowed to enable 
originators that do support such join-backs of variant 
supersession-version-chains to state it has occurred.     (01)

Ann W.    (02)

________________________________    (03)

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Fabian Neuhaus
Sent: Thu 3/13/2008 5:21 PM
To: ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ontology-summit] [Quality] Gatekeeping proposal    (04)


Dear All 
I would like to kick off the discussion about Quality and Gatekeeping. The 
Ontology Summit 2008 is only a few weeks away and there is much to do! As the 
title of the discussion thread suggests, we have two tasks: We need to develop 
a set of minimal requirements that any ontology needs to fulfill in order to be 
accepted as part of the Open Ontology Repository (= Gatekeeping). Further, we 
need to discuss the different ways the quality of an ontology within the OOR 
can be evaluated and what kind of services the OOR needs to provide to support 
these kinds of evaluation.     (05)

I suggest that we start with the gate keeping discussion: What are the minimal 
criteria that an ontology needs to meet in order to be accepted as part of the 
OOR? I would suggest to set the bar rather low and only focus on criteria that 
ensure that it will be easy for the community to use the ontology as resource.     (06)

Here is a list of requirements that would do that (some of these principles are 
adopted from the OBO Foundry):       (07)

1. The ontology is open and available to be used under the Creative Commons 
Attribution license without any constraint other than (a) its origin must be 
acknowledged and (b) it is not to be altered and subsequently redistributed 
under the original name.    (08)


This criterion is a specification of what "open" in "Open Ontology Repository" 
means.     (09)


2. The ontology is expressed in a formal language with a well-defined syntax.     (010)

Obviously, an ontology is going to be more valuable to a large audience if it 
is expressed in a widely used formal language, but the repository is not 
restricted to those.  The authors are required to provide a reference to a 
document that specifies a grammar of the formal language.       (011)

3. The authors of the ontology provide the required metadata.    (012)

Pat Hayes and Michael Gruninger are championing a discussion about the ontology 
of ontologies and metadata. This requirement will enforce the use of the result 
of this discussion since it ensures that no ontology can be submitted without 
providing the necessary metadata. The goal is to enable users to quickly survey 
the available ontologies and find the right ones for them.     (013)

4. The ontology has a clearly specified and clearly delineated scope.    (014)

The specification of the scope is strictly speaking part of the metadata but 
important enough to mention it explicitly. It enables potential users to get an 
idea what a given ontology is about without browsing the ontology.    (015)


5. The ontology provider has procedures for identifying distinct successive 
versions.    (016)


I'll post this list also on the QualityAndGatekeeping wiki page: 
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2008_QualityAndGatekeeping
This page will be updated with summaries of our discussion.     (017)


Best
Fabian     (018)

<<winmail.dat>>


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