Julita, (01)
Thank you for your perspective. (02)
> Some four years ago, for my PhD thesis, I was suggested to build up an
>ontology to support the analysis, design and implementation process of a
>certain kind of control-based systems. Fine with me, but at the time the first
>question was: what is an ontology? (03)
How was the concept of an ontology defined to you to be? Did the people that
gave you that suggestion have a working definition of what they expected your
results to be? Did you ask them what "deliverables" you were expected to
produce, or just accept the label and learn on your own? (04)
> Hence, the training to become an ontologist followed the path of finding
>books and references from well-known ontologists. (05)
Without a mentor, you would have to accept on faith or "wisdom of the crowds"
that someone labeled as an ontologist actually was one. (06)
> I was lucky enough to find a couple of just published books on ontological
>engineering and ontologies for software engineering. (07)
Did you find that the contents of the books and references closely matched, or
did not closely match, the training and reference material (perhaps in computer
systems design) that you were already familiar with? (08)
> The real struggle started when I had to develop my own ontology. How do you
>do that? I do not have a full answer. Already established methodologies helped
>me as a guide. The rest, common sense, prior knowledge engineering and test
>and error procedures. As a result, an ontology suitable enough for our needs,
>which I hope will grow as our research evolves. And a PhD dissertation on its
>way, trying to explain the entire ontological engineering process. (09)
I look forward to reading it, if it can be made publicly available. And good
luck to you defending it! (010)
> ... if I have to go through a multiple choice test now on the topic, I will
>fail it. (011)
That's a pretty dim view, and assuming that the grading isn't done on a curve
:-). (012)
> Knowing the theory just helps, does not make you an ontologist. (013)
Does knowing mathematics make you a mathematician? Does knowing logic make you
a logician? Sorry, off topic :-). (014)
> The important thing for me was to sit down and train my brain to think
>different from what I was used to do. (015)
I'm curious to know how and why you think you are thinking differently, or are
you using additional (perhaps more finely tuned) labels for intellectual
processes that you already used? This will be important for a very large
population of people that may have had more experience than yourself with some
process and want to expand into a new domain. (016)
> Trying to explain to non-ontologist people what you are doing, has been
>difficult. I had to start explaining to my own research team what an ontology
>is, what I was doing, and most importantly, how it will help them as
>down-to-earth software and hardware engineers. (017)
I would understand why this would be difficult to discuss with people that had
no algebra or geometry experience, but what were the struggles with software
and hardware engineers? I would expect them to be quite comfortable with
relations and attributes. (018)
Joel (019)
_________________________________________________________________
Msg Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontology-summit/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontology-summit/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontology-summit-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Community Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OntologySummit2009/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2010
Community Portal: http://ontolog.cim3.net/ (020)
|