On Mar 19, 2008, at 2:13 PM, Pat Hayes wrote: Barry summarized very well what the goal of gatekeeping is: "if an OOR is to be useful, then potential users need to have reliable expectations as to what it will contain".
It seems to me that the best way - perhaps the only way - to determine this, is to read the ontology itself (or to put it through more dynamic tests, such as inputting to a reasoner or trying its effect on a battery of test cases.) What more does Barry expect by way of telling a potential user what it will contain? Can we see some examples? For example, consider the OWL-Time ontology, with a covering statement consisting of the observation that it is an ontology of time and temporal relationships, including dates and time-zones, intended for general use, and written in OWL-DL. Would that suffice?
I'm pretty certain part of what is wrapped up in "reliable expectations" extends beyond the current content of the ontology. I believe there is also an interest in indicating something regarding whether the ontology is in an active state of development, in use by a significant community of users, and does it have some versioning policy in place. Such characteristics are part of the OBO Foundry principles ( http://www.obofoundry.org/crit.shtml). This is a similar criterion many use when trying to evaluate whether to use an existing open source software library or application - the idea being users want to know what their liabilities might be by investing significant time in using this particular tool.
Cheers, Bill
Ontological Engineer work: (610) 457-0443 Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) and National Center for Microscopy & Imaging Research (NCMIR) Dept. of Neuroscience, School of Medicine University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, CA 92093
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