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Re: [ontology-summit] [Quality] Relevant questions re: ontology quality

To: Ontology Summit 2012 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Amanda Vizedom <amanda.vizedom@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2012 10:49:49 -0500
Message-id: <CAEmngXsaKDmAm2_TXJfMxbTsU89ri8PTOcQMV-wv1AUZYtVSYg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Sun, Feb 12, 2012 at 09:26, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote    (01)

JS:
>
> Unfortunately, people working in mainstream IT have come to the
> conclusion that ontology is for debating societies, not for
> anybody who has real work to do.    (02)


ajv:
Indeed, many have. And ontology continues to attract some with a
debating society focus. However, ontology increasingly attracts many
more with a pragmatic, one might dare say engineering-like, focus.
Increasingly many ontologists are interested in working on actual
solutions to actual problems. You will even find that there is rising
activity in practical solutions toward understanding, measuring, and
managing ontology quality.    (03)

It is good to acknowledge failures and learn from them. However,
having so acknowledged things that have been amiss, we simply drag the
summit back into debating-society territory if we linger to much on
those points. It will advance our *shared* purposes more if we can
focus our energy, and the streams of this discussion list, on
directions, methods, projects, proposals, requests, needs, and such
that we (each) feel to be on the road toward practical, useful,
results.    (04)

JS:
>
> I'm all in favor of quality.  But as I said in an earlier note,
> the quality of an ontology is irrelevant to (and more often
> inversely proportional to) its usage.    (05)

ajv:
I disagree strongly, but I will take my own advice above and try not
to spend much time on the disagreement itself.  Rather, allow me to
try to adjust the focus. Earlier in the summit (see for example
conversation paraphrased at
http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2012_Quality_CommunityInput#nid333LI)
I expressed my view that we could make some progress on this topic
because the focus of the summit on big systems contexts obligates us
"to confine ourselves to discussing ontology quality *as it makes a
difference to* large-scale systems systems engineering...This
practical focus takes a considerable amount of potential discussion
out of scope...[and] gives us an agreed reference direction for the
discussions we do have: the direction of big systems and systems
engineering use cases, and the ways in which characteristics of
ontologies support or fail to support" such systems. I still think
this, and think we can apply it.    (06)

First, there are multiple models of ontology quality, even in the
academic literature. Within this diversity, we can discern two groups
(examples of both can be found in our growing reference library at
https://www.zotero.org/groups/ontologysummit2012/items/collectionKey/TV2QAN4H).    (07)

The first group takes ontology quality to consist of only formal,
universal (that is, applying equally to all ontologies and regardless
of usage), and/or theoretical characteristics. I agree with you that
that models in this group do not correspond much with usage. I won't
digress here into arguing the merits or demerits of the existing
variants of the more theoretical portions.    (08)

The second group is more in keeping with regarding formal ontologies
as computational artifacts and potential components of (artificial
and/or mixed) systems. This group approaches ontology quality from a
more pragmatic view. Most models of ontology quality within this group
treat quality as consisting  of both some formal and universal
characteristics and also many use-oriented characteristics.    (09)

There is, therefore, ample precedent for thinking of ontology quality
as comprising both some usage-independent and some usage-dependent
ontology characteristics. A relevant question for this summit, then,
is not so much an abstract debate about the meaning or relevance of
ontology quality. Rather, acknowledging that we are within a
usage-oriented context, asking what characteristics of ontologies,
usage-dependent or not, have (most) significance for the ability of an
ontology to work successfully in a large systems or
large-systems-engineering context.  Highly relevant and useful
variants or follow-ups to this question include: how can systems
engineers evaluate, assure, measure, recognize, or otherwise manage
ontology quality? What gives them trouble, in this domain? What
answers or solutions are available? What aspects of ontology quality
need more attention, from ontologists, systems engineers, or both?    (010)

Amanda    (011)

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