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Re: [ontology-summit] [Reusable Content] Characterizing or measuring reu

To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion <ontology-summit@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Cory Casanave <cory-c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 18:30:27 +0000
Message-id: <ba9a5696e64f4db382dbbfe9a741f8f3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Ed,

I would add to your list:

·         The would-be user trusts the supplier’s content and quality

·         The would-be user trusts that the resource will be maintained and always available

 

There is a lot of “reuse failed” talk, but I would suggest that what failed is “casual reuse”. There is tremendous reuse of software libraries – that are of high quality and well supported by an organization or community. There is fantastic reuse of applications. There is good reuse of languages. There is some reuse of established Ontologies but rather poor reuse of some other kinds of models, e.g. UML. For anything to be reused substantially takes effort, commitment and marketing on the part of the creator. It also requires a business model for sustainment.

 

Most models/ontologies start either from a blank page or reverse engineered from technology specifications.  There is very poor concept reuse and this tendency to re-invent causes semantic islands and unnecessary redundancy. Perhaps this is more due to the trust and content issues than representations. Certainly that models/ontologies are not modular creates a problem. Perhaps that is a problem because the commitment to design for reuse and sustained support has not been the focus of modelers.

 

-Cory Casanave

 

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Barkmeyer, Edward J
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 1:14 PM
To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion
Subject: Re: [ontology-summit] [Reusable Content] Characterizing or measuring reuse

 

Andrea,

 

There is a big difference between ‘opportunities for reuse’ and ‘reuse’.  Reuse is a behavior.  The so-called “opportunities” are just resources that could be reused, but of themselves they are just available resources.  A wealth of information doesn’t have a clear relationship to the use of that information, especially since some of it contradicts others.  But I think your last question is the key one:

> Or, is content present but it is just very difficult to use/re-use?

 

Reuse is dependent on all of the following:

- the content is present (on the Internet/Web)

- the would-be re-user knows that the content is present, i.e., can find it

- the would-be re-user is motivated to find and examine the content

- the content is in a form suitable for the planned re-use, or can be “readily” converted to a useful form

- the would-be re-user knows how to convert the form, if necessary

- the content is consistent with the micro-theory adopted by the re-user

- the re-user is able to determine that the content is consistent with his/her theory

 

That all of these factors must be present makes it  the nature of the beast that content is difficult to reuse.

What we tend to see is

-  “reuse by direction”:  Use this so that your model will be consistent with ours/hers.

-  “reuse by social pressure”:  I use the BFO because I know a lot of knowledge engineers who use/like it.

And of course, both of these lead to the Catch-22 problem: the content has to have been reused in order to be reused.

 

Murray Burke (DAML) once commented that upper ontologies would be reused because most knowledge engineers would be too lazy to roll their own.  Experience suggests that the latter is true, but the former is not necessarily a consequence.

 

In sum, I think reuse is both a technical problem and a social problem.  (And if I knew how to overcome either, I would be rich, or something. J)

 

-Ed

 

 

From: ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontology-summit-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrea Westerinen
Sent: Monday, January 27, 2014 1:54 PM
To: Ontology Summit 2014 discussion
Subject: [ontology-summit] [Reusable Content] Characterizing or measuring reuse

 

Other important questions in the "reusable content" arena are how to ascertain and improve the amount of reuse.  

 

It "seems" that reuse is low, but there are many sites offering reusable content and therefore many opportunities for reuse. For example, in the Ontology Design Pattern (ODP) space, there are:

 

 - W3C'S Ontology Engineering and Patterns Task Force (OEP) [1]

 - Ontology Design Patterns org wiki [2]

 - ODP Public Catalog [3]

 

In addition, there are foundational ontologies available, as discussed in the Upper Ontology Summit (2006) [4], as well as domain ontologies like FIBO. 

 

So, does the wealth of information contradict the perception?

 

Or, is content present but it is just very difficult to use/re-use?  

 

Perhaps we need to refine our engineering approaches and abilities to better find and evaluate reusable content?  This is discussed in a paper by María Poveda-Villalón, Mari Carmen Suárez-Figueroa and Asunción Gómez-Pérez [5] that I found quite interesting.

 

I personally would love to see a review and recommendation system put in place for ontologies, patterns, linked data models, etc. Is this something that we could achieve? 

 


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