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Re: [ontology-summit] An example of the worth of ontology development

To: Ontology Summit 2011 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Jack Ring <jring7@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2011 13:18:33 -0700
Message-id: <94D2B864-42ED-4CC7-9CD9-A0635ADB4E98@xxxxxxxxx>
Leo,
Makes sense to me. Pls say a few words about the Red Team that vets the work of 
the "...small and ontology savvy..." ontology team.
Jack
On Mar 3, 2011, at 1:10 PM, Obrst, Leo J. wrote:    (01)

> It is usually the case that you don't want to show the SMEs the details of 
>the ontology, since they will not know how to interpret what they see. We had 
>this issue in spades at VerticalNet, e.g., where the application actually 
>exposed the ontology as categories in the user interface, rather than present 
>a better GUI in terms of the audience. We dubbed this the representation vs. 
>presentation issue. Applications ALWAYS need to provide their own application 
>view to the user, not just expose the underlying technical model, especially 
>for ontologies, where the plumbing could be axioms and logical 
>assertions/rules. 
> 
> Now if your SME is indeed also an ontologist, or your ontology tools enable a 
>SME to do the right thing without showing the hairy details (and no tool I've 
>found does that), then you can show the representation. Otherwise, always show 
>the presentation view.
> 
> You'll scare the hell out of SMEs because they will interpret your ontology 
>class/property "label" as a word that they and their comparable users don't 
>use. And what's all these backward Es and upside down As and arrows? In much 
>the same way, you don't allow end users to develop crucial enterprise 
>databases themselves, you don't allow them to develop ontologies unless they 
>are also ontologists. Term \= Concept. Application category \= ontological 
>axiom. 
> 
> However, you do need to show SMEs that the results of the application of the 
>ontology are good, accurate, and granular. E.g., for database integration 
>efforts, you need them to confirm that the competency questions are answered 
>well, accurately, and at the right level of granularity. Results, they can 
>judge well.  Plumbing, they can't.
> 
> Furthermore, no ontology develop by committees! The committee is the 
>stakeholder association, not the technical ontology development team, the 
>latter of which should be small and ontology savvy. The stakeholder committee 
>needs to know that their semantics are captured, and this is best done by 
>application results and a strong data/ontology dictionary/lexicon/glossary, in 
>addition to audience-tempered briefings.
> 
> Thanks,
> Leo
> 
> _____________________________________________ 
> Dr. Leo Obrst        The MITRE Corporation, Information Semantics 
> lobrst@xxxxxxxxx     Information Discovery & Understanding, Command & Control 
>Center
> Voice: 703-983-6770  7515 Colshire Drive, M/S H305 
> Fax: 703-983-1379    McLean, VA 22102-7508, USA
> 
>   
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
>[mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John F. Sowa
> Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 2:33 PM
> To: Amanda Vizedom
> Cc: Ontology Summit 2011 discussion
> Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] An example of the worth of ontology development
> 
> On 3/3/2011 12:09 PM, Amanda Vizedom wrote:
>> If we want SME validation of an ontology, we need to produce a
>> validation test that uses the formalized ontology to do something, and
>> that something needs to have results within the SMEs area of
>> understanding and practice. If we want the ontology to be multipurpose
>> and reusable, we should have a variety of such tests. Rather than
>> relying on yet another semi-intelligible visualization of the ontology,
>> and SME feedback on whether this seems right, we should incorporate
>> functional testing into the ontology development and validation workflow.
> 
> I very strongly agree with that point.
> 
> For an example of a tool that we are currently developing at VivoMind,
> see slides 26 to 30 of the following presentation:
> 
>    http://www.jfsowa.com/talks/futures.pdf
> 
> Slides 26 to 28 describe the proto-ontology extractor, which works with
> a SME to develop an ontology from a set of documents about some subject.
> 
> The SMEs get immediate feedback from it by seeing that their changes
> to the ontology produce improved results:  more accurate answers to
> their questions about the documents, and improved precision and recall
> of the desired data.
> 
>> Part of the SME validation should be search & retrieval tests on the corpus,
>> to see whether the ontology creates results that reflect the SME knowledge.
> 
> We are still at an early stage of development.  But we demonstrated
> better results in comparison with other tools that the SMEs had used.
> 
>> And a bit a time and effort need to go into developing these up front.
>> IME that up-front time and effort is not often done, and budgets don't 
>include it.
> 
> Speaking as a partner in a small business, we can only do what
> our clients pay us to do.  They usually pay for results, not for
> studies that show how or whether we could produce results.
> 
> John
> 
> 
> 
> 
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