[ontology-summit] Scope of ontology: Issues:

[Alan Rector <rector@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All

An issue that I don't see clearly in the correspondence is:

How does ontology development fits into the larger life cycle of information system development?  Answering requires some statement on the scope of ontologies and how they relate to other knowledge and information models.

* What are the different paradigms for roles for an ontology in information or knowledge systems? As a terminology to be carried by the information model?  As part of the the information model? As a means of validating the information model? Reconciling multiple information models?  Other?   In each case is it one model or several?  If several, how are the interfaces defined? Maintained?

* How does this integration into use affect the life cycle?  Can we avoid too close a coupling between the ontology development and 

other developments so that one does not become a drag on the other.  In particular   how to  front loading development with the work on ontology development that the applications never get built.  This has been a major issue in the Health Informatics area, with enormous effort going into developing resources such as SNOMED CT and the NCI Thesaurus with much less attention to how they will be used (not to mention the related front-loaded efforts in other areas of information modelling, e.g. both HL7-v3 ).

Are these issues the Summit should address?  (Or have I just not looked int the right place or interpreted the comments correctly)

Alan

-----------------------

Alan Rector

Professor of Medical Informatics

School of Computer Science

University of Manchester

Manchester M13 9PL, UK

TEL +44 (0) 161 275 6149/6188

FAX +44 (0) 161 275 6204

www.cs.man.ac.uk/~rector

www.co-ode.org

http://clahrc-gm.nihr.ac.uk/

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