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Re: [oor-forum] Todd Schneider's requirements summary

To: Pat Hayes <phayes@xxxxxxx>
Cc: OpenOntologyRepository-discussion <oor-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: John Graybeal <graybeal@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2008 08:02:21 -0700
Message-id: <p06240876c43259589066@[134.89.11.100]>
I am sure hoping we include storage of ontologies, and the associated services 
(and it was explicitly what was discussed as the purpose of the OOR, in the 
first few telecons about it).  Otherwise it is of much less use for my needs.    (01)

For our own needs as a community service provider, we have to
 (a) store ontologies, mostly in OWL, of varying levels of sophstication, and
 (b) provide a variety of services, at the level of ontological terms (what I 
assume 'components' means in Denise's comments), at the level of the ontology, 
and at the level of providing metadata about the ontology (about both its terms 
and the ontology as a whole).  I imagine we will also want to provide services 
about the collection of ontologies that we have.  Note that most of these 
services do not require an ontology of ontologies; in the short term the effort 
to develop the ontology of ontologies will just delay my ability to provide 
needed services.    (02)

I am only a beginning/amateur ontologist, so maybe Pat has some definitions or 
assumptions in mind that underlie the responses to Denise's comments, and that 
would make these storage requirements so obviously addressable by "the web".  
If so, it would be helpful to have those definitions or assumptions made 
explicit for the less knowledgeable; I do not see how the web as such addresses 
the needs.     (03)

(In case the reason for my confusion isn't clear:  I could imagine saying "I 
can provide all those services layered on top of the ontologies that are out 
there on the web."  The two things I wouldn't understand about that are (a) how 
do the ontologies that I have produced get out there, unless I *store them* and 
then serve them, and (b) what sense it makes to separate the ontology 
management (which I assume is required to create the ontologies and put them 
'out there') from all of the functions associated with the ontologies. At a 
minimum, it would be architecturally odd not to couple the _publication_ step 
with the services that construct metadata and serve terms, since you want those 
services to be triggered by any update to the ontology.)    (04)

John    (05)


At 10:22 PM -0500 4/20/08, Pat Hayes wrote:
>At 10:29 AM -0400 4/18/08, dbedford@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>>Denise's comments --
>>
>>--->>> I've heard both notions bandied about. Operationally, I think [an] OORx
>>        will have both types of entities. Some organizations will want to have
>>        or provide persistence while others may only wish to host a registry.
>>        This is an architectural decision that will need to be made. In my 
>mind
>>        I think the functionality among a registry and a repository can be
>>        partitioned in such a way that will allow plug-n-play deployment and
>>        operation.
>>
>>Thanks for the reply.   In one of the panel sessions there was a discussion
>>about the different set of requirements for actually storing versus describing
>>ontologies.
>>
>
>I think there are other distinctions to be made. Describing ontologies is 
>surely to be done by an ontology of ontologies. Being a registry involves 
>providing access to ontologies, perhaps providing limited meta-information 
>about them and a uniform interface for registering them, maintaining updates 
>and so on. None of this need involve actually storing ontologies, which is 
>what a repository is supposed to do. Personally, I see absolutely no purpose 
>in our even discussing methods for storing ontologies, given the presence of 
>the Web. That is a matter of network engineering, not a topic that this forum 
>should even be concerning itself with, IMO.
>
>> At least two of the speakers agreed that two distinct data models
>>underlie storing an ontology and describing an ontology.  The overlap between
>>thosee data models -- from my experience working with and describing 
>ontologies
>>each day
>>
>
>May I ask what are these ontologies that you deal with so often? I am 
>surprised to hear that this many ontologies actually exist. What kinds of 
>formalism are they written in?
>
>>-- will be quite minimal.   So, in our requirements for an OOR, are we
>>targeting the set that is common to both a repository and a registry?
>>
>>        I will argue for a distributed non-hierarchal architecture (e.g. flat
>>        P2P) to meet operational needs.
>>
>>Whether a registry is centralized or distributed is of less import to the
>>registry design.   The underlying data model for an ontology repository, 
>though,
>>cannot be restricted to a question of a hierarchical or non-hierarchical
>>architecture.   The first design issue is which ongology components must be
>>accommodated in the data model, then what type of an architecture is needed to
>>represent each of those components.  A registry can tell us what types of
>>components a particular ontology may have, but it may not -- without a more
>>explicit data model - be able to house those components.
>>
>
>I find this all very opaque. What do you mean by a 'component' of an ontology?
>
>Pat Hayes
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-- 
----------
John Graybeal   <mailto:graybeal@xxxxxxxxx>  -- 831-775-1956
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Marine Metadata Interoperability Project: http://marinemetadata.org  
Shore Side Data System: http://www.mbari.org/ssds    (07)

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