OntologySummit2010 Launch Event - Thu 2009-12-10    (24HD)

Launch Event for OntologySummit2010: "Creating the Ontologists of the Future"    (23G9)

    (24ZO)

Conference Call Details    (23MY)

Attendees:    (23NL)

Resources    (24HU)

Background    (24I7)

This is our 5th Ontology Summit, a joint initiative by NIST, Ontolog, NCOR, NCBO and IAOA with the support of our co-sponsors. The theme adopted for this Ontology Summit is: "Creating the Ontologists of the Future." In an earlier planning session last month, the community brainstormed on this initiative and how best to frame the issues. That and subsequent input were carefully reviewed and synthesized by the Summit Organizing Committee, and it is this plan that we will be discussing with everyone during this launch event.    (24I8)

This officially marks the beginning of "Ontology Summit 2010." Programs including surveys, mailing list discussions, virtual panel sessions, collaborative authoring of research studies and findings, etc. will follow in the next three months. These activities will culminate in a two-day face-to-face symposium at NIST (Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA) on 15 & 16-March-2010. At this launch, we will be introducing the "Ontology Summit 2010" objective, organization, process, deliverables and preliminary plans to you, and we welcome your ideas and participation.    (24I9)

See: OntologySummit2010 (home page for the project)    (24IA)

Agenda & Proceedings:    (24IB)

Ontology Summit 2010 Launch    (24IC)

Topic: Ontology Summit 2010 Launch    (24IL)

Increasingly, major national and international projects centered on ontology technology are being advanced by governments and by scientific and industrial organizations. This brings a growing need for ontology expertise and thus for new methods and institutions for the training of ontologists. The 2010 Ontology Summit will explore strategies to address this need in terms of curriculum, establishment of new career tracks, role of ontology support organizations and funding agencies, as well as training in the analysis and comparison of methodologies for designing, maintaining, implementing, testing and applying ontologies and associated tools and resources.    (24IN)

The 2010 Ontology Summit officially begins with today's launch event. We are initiating a series of topical online discussions, virtual panel sessions, etc. which will take place, virtually, in the next 3 months. All of these will come together with a face-to-face meeting on March 15 & 16 in Gaithersburg, MD, USA at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).    (24IO)

 see raw transcript here.    (2516)
 (for better clarity, the version below is a re-organized and lightly edited chat-transcript.)
 Participants are welcome to make light edits to their own contributions as they see fit.    (24JW)
    -- begin of chat session --    (274M)
	PeterYim: 
	.
	Welcome to the Thu 2009-12-10 Launch Event for Ontology Summit 2010    (274N)
	* Co-chairs: Dr. SteveRay & Professor BarrySmith (Ontology Summit 2010 General Co-chair)    (274O)
	* OntologySummit2010 Theme: "Creating the Ontologists of the Future"    (274P)
	* Panelists:  
	  o Content Track:    
	    + Present: ArturoSanchez, AntonyGalton
	    + Future: LeoObrst, MichaelGruninger
	  o Quality Track:   
	    + Present: ArturoSanchez, AntonyGalton
	    + Future: BarrySmith, NicolaGuarino, FabianNeuhaus
	  o Professional Context Track:    
	    + Present: AmandaVizedom, RalphHodgson
	    + Future: ElizabethFlorescu, PeterYim
	.
	session page: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2009_12_10 
	.    (274Q)
	anonymous morphed into JohnSchlichter    (274R)
	JohnSchlichter: What is the URL for the presentation?    (274S)
	JoelNatividad: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2009_12_10#nid23MX    (274T)
	JoelNatividad: click on each item enclosed in brackets in Slides bullet    (274U)
	JohnSchlichter: thank you    (274V)
	anonymous1 morphed into Meika Ungricht    (274W)
	anonymous2 morphed into KurtConrad    (274X)
	anonymous1 morphed into Tracy Safran NCICB/EVS    (274Y)
	JohnSchlichter: has joined the concall.    (274Z)
	Laurent morphed into LaurentLiscia    (2750)
	anonymous1 morphed into RexBrooks    (2751)
	anonymous morphed into Peter B Andersen    (2752)
	anonymous1 morphed into Cameron Ross    (2753)
	FrankOlken: I have joined the conference call.    (2754)
	FrankOlken: Just a reminder to NSF PI's: CISE small proposals are due on Dec. 17, 2009.    (2755)
	anonymous: Elizabeth joined, but I don't know how to enter my name...    (2756)
	JoelBender: Elizabeth: there is a "settings" button at the top, click it.    (2757)
	JoelBender: There is an option there for your name.    (2758)
	Elizabeth morphed into ElizabethFlorescu    (2759)
	ArturoSanchez: @anonymous: press Settings    (275A)
	anonymous morphed into Stuart Turner    (275B)
	anonymous2 morphed into BarrySmith    (275C)
	RexBrooks morphed into RexBrooks    (275D)
	Mary Brady morphed into MaryBrady    (275E)
	Cameron Ross morphed into CameronRoss    (275F)
	Bill Hogan morphed into BillHogan    (275G)
	anonymous morphed into PavithraKenjige    (275H)
	JoelNatividad: Gents, can you confirm that the VNC shared screen is up?    (275I)
	RaviSharma: Yes Joel    (275J)
	ArturoSanchez: @JoelNatividad: it seems VNC is not up this time ... ask Peter    (275K)
	RaviSharma: Joel, Please put in password after you open the VNC in a new Window some company 
	firewalls do not allow so download the slides and open them please    (275L)
	ArturoSanchez: ArturoSanchez: @JoelNatividad: I take it back ... it is up ...    (275M)
	Tracy Safran NCICB/EVS morphed into Tracy Safran SAIC/EVS    (275N)
	JoelNatividad: @Arturo,Ravi:thanks    (275O)
	RaviSharma: Barry    (275P)
	RaviSharma: Are you able to see this please unmute #3    (275Q)
	Peter B Andersen: None of the phone numbers I have tried seems to be correct. Has any one else had 
	this problem?    (275R)
	JohnSchlichter: Darn. I missed the intro because I had to answer the door.    (275S)
	ArturoSanchez: @PeterYim: I hear OK ...    (275T)
	AmandaVizedom: Steve, you are fading in and out to me    (275U)
	Tracy Safran SAIC/EVS: No problems hearing either of you    (275V)
	JohnSchlichter: The presenter is hard to hear.    (275W)
	JohnSchlichter: Peter is easy to hear, but Steve is not.    (275X)
	PeterYim: Barry, we cannot hear you    (275Y)
	BarrySmith: I am hearing you, but you seem not to be hearing me.    (275Z)
	RaviSharma: Barry please press *3    (2760)
	ArturoSanchez: Yes!    (2761)
	ArturoSanchez: Excellent!    (2762)
	anonymous morphed into My Coyne    (2763)
	PeterYim: we seem to have vnc problem too ... please run the slides on your desktops    (2764)
	RaviSharma: Barry: I agree that Ontology basics from different viewpoints should be a common 
	awareness baseline curriculum.    (2765)
	ArturoSanchez: indeed ...    (2766)
	anonymous morphed into BorisShvedin    (2767)
	JohnSchlichter: Barry commented that ontology should not be confused with semiotics or 
	Wittgenstein-ian language games. Should it not be confused with phenomenology as well, or is that a 
	relevant intellectual history?    (2768)
	RaviSharma: Barry: However I am not in favor of restricting the access to ontolog forum except by 
	whatever moderation that peter so kindly provides. We have to laud Peter's efforts at keeping the 
	forum transparent and open to the World at large. What perhaps you are meaning is that those who 
	claim some certification etc can have a more restricted forum such as certified ontologists. I have 
	for example no formal training in Ontology and i am happy to operate in open forum. If I submit a 
	paper, it has to be refereed etc and there are mechanisms to restrict or filter contributions. I 
	recommend to keep Ontolog Forum Open.    (2769)
	RaviSharma: Peter: please update VNC    (276A)
	RaviSharma: Arturo: we have to search and explore and interpret different curriculae which most 
	likely often are part of some domain based curriculae and also combine them with onto specific 
	curriculae to get a canvas of current state.    (276B)
	AmandaVizedom: Don't worry, John and Ravi -- there will be *plenty* of discussion about what the 
	content, measures, and delivery of ontological competence are & should be. Barry shared his 
	motivation with us, but it is important for all to know that motivations across the Organizing 
	Committee are quite varied, and all expect similar variation among participants. I hope that we can 
	discuss these, but also - essentially - move past them to make progress on the training/education 
	development goals we have in common.    (276C)
	RaviSharma: Leo and Mike: Why are you excluding a Ph.D. Program in Ontology whether it is coupled 
	with knowledge type adjectives?    (276D)
	anonymous morphed into JeffAbbott    (276E)
	RaviSharma: Mike:    (276F)
	JohnSchlichter: Amanda: thanks. Just trying to orient my listening.    (276G)
	JoelNatividad: Peter, Steve: I can hear Steve quite well    (276H)
	JoelNatividad: Perhaps, its on your end    (276I)
	BartGajderowicz: I hear the static as well.    (276J)
	BruceBray: no problem hearing Steve from my end    (276K)
	JohnSchlichter: I can hear everyone fine now.    (276L)
	RexBrooks: I'm also having no trouble hearing Steve.    (276M)
	JohnSchlichter: Well, the presenter just disapeared.    (276N)
	CameronRoss: A lot of baseline static here.    (276O)
	My Coyne: Now, I cannot hear anything..    (276P)
	ElizabethFlorescu: it seems that the line got cut????    (276Q)
	GaryBergCross: I can hear everyone.    (276R)
	RexBrooks: I'm now also not hearing anyone but Peter, Frank and a few others.    (276S)
	SteveRay: I've lost contact also.    (276T)
	My Coyne: Yes I can hear steve    (276U)
	SteveRay: Can't hear Arturo.    (276V)
	ArturoSanchez: Can you hear me??    (276W)
	CameronRoss: all clear now    (276X)
	BartGajderowicz: The static just disappeared for me as well.    (276Y)
	JohnSchlichter: I seem to hear everyone except Arturo.    (276Z)
	SteveRay: Can't hear Arturo    (2770)
	FrankOlken: I can hear Steve Ray, Peter Yim, Michael Gruninger, .... but not Arturo.    (2771)
	RaviSharma: Barry: can you hear steve?    (2772)
	ArturoSanchez: It seems I need to call again ... move to another track ...    (2773)
	MichaelGruninger: @Ravi: We are not exlcuding PhD programme; that was a small oversight in the 
	slides    (2774)
	RaviSharma: Mike: We need Domain based such as Supply chain, Mfg, Financial and other practical 
	domains clinical practices and also professional tracks such as biology, medicine , physics etc.    (2775)
	JoelNatividad: +1 to Ravi's point about domains. Also, what about work on standardizing 
	domain-specific upper ontologies    (2776)
	MichaelGruninger: @Ravi : Yes, I mentioned the notion of streams for industrial application areas at 
	the end of my presentation (although it wasn't explicitly on the slides)    (2777)
	SteveRay: Barry is now presenting.    (2778)
	BartGajderowicz: Which slides / page is Barry presenting from?    (2779)
	SteveRay: Barry is on slide #2    (277A)
	ArturoSanchez: I am back ... I can hear Barry ... but need to check if people will be able to hear 
	me ... let me know ...    (277B)
	JoelBender: @Bart: 
	OntologySummit2010-Launch_Quality-Track--BarrySmith-NicolaGuarino-FabianNeuhaus_20091210    (277C)
	JoelNatividad: @Bart: 
	http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/OntologySummit2010/2009-12-10_LaunchEvent/OntologySummit2010-Launch_Quality-Track--BarrySmith-NicolaGuarino-FabianNeuhaus_20091210.pdf    (277D)
	BartGajderowicz: thank you    (277E)
	SteveRay: Arturo, I will introduce you once Barry is finished.    (277F)
	SteveRay: Slide #3    (277G)
	RaviSharma: Peter VNC does not work?    (277H)
	anonymous morphed into JulitaBermejoAlonso    (277I)
	BartGajderowicz: Slides: 
	OntologySummit2010-Launch_Present-Curricular-Quality-Tracks--ArturoSanchez-AntonyGalton_20091210.pdf    (277J)
	AmandaVizedom: @John. Roger that. I would hate for anyone to think that they should not contribute, 
	or stick with the Summit over the next few months, because of disagreement with Barry's position (he 
	will be the first to say it is a controversial one). The work we will be doing over the duration of 
	the summit is fundamentally critical and collaborative. IMNSHO, the breadth and depth of that 
	critical collaboration is essential. Diversity of experience is a significant factor in whether the 
	Summit produces something that moves the field of ontology forward.    (277K)
	RaviSharma: Yes Amanda    (277L)
	RaviSharma: Barry: I think we have concentrated effectively on creating a practice out of what was 
	earlier very spotty presence encompassing almost many many disciplines, e.g. philosophy, math, 
	physics, computer logic, bio, various other communities including search and discovery, databases 
	people from many walks. Your efforts are praiseworthy to create an academic and professional 
	certification tracks and hopefully these will be recognized by academic bodies to design new 
	curriculae around them.    (277M)
	ArturoSanchez: @RaviSharma: thank you Ravi ... in your suggestion you are mixing present with 
	future. The stance we propose we take is to first see what is out there, and also propose what we 
	think should be out there ... your point is well taken    (277N)
	anonymous morphed into Matthew Lange    (277O)
	JohnSchlichter: Amanda: I don't find Barry's thesis controversial. I prefer learning to being right. 
	I appreciate a distinction between ontology as metaphysics and ontology information science. The 
	latter grew from the former. In this regard, I wonder what Barry's comment meant that we should 
	disregard "irrelevant philosophical games".    (277P)
	JoelNatividad: @Amanda: I have so many war stories being a practitioner. Can you share your contact 
	info?    (277Q)
	RaviSharma: Amanda: Yes I agree, today we have to search for people today by first knowing whether 
	they have worked with known institutions, tools or individuals, and now I have view access to your 
	slides, I agree with your slides. However do you not agree that we have to have a roadmap or canvas 
	of knowledge-ontology-science-logic-philosophy&logic etc and practices from DARPA, Europe and Other 
	US Knowledge initaitives from multiple dimensions, then we can also create strategies for where the 
	gaps are needs are and where the efforts should be.    (277R)
	JohnSchlichter: Ontology is taught in some universities as Philosophy. This is less the case in 
	America, which has sucumbed to the Analytic school and focuses on language games, and used to be 
	more common in Europe (Continental Philosophy). This developed into very practical scientific 
	methods for practicing ontology. Thus there are already relevant curriculums.    (277S)
	anonymous morphed into EdDodds    (277T)
	RexBrooks: Don't we need to understand the marketplace in the sense of educating that marketplace 
	about the potential value of ontologists?    (277U)
	AmandaVizedom: @Joel Yes, and a tip for you and others looking for Ontolog member contact info: 
	Looking at the Wiki page for the session, you'll see that many names are hyperlinks. Click on the 
	name and you will get the person's profile. Many folks, including me, have contact info on there 
	(slightly obfuscated to prevent spambot harvesting).    (277V)
	RaviSharma: Elizabeth and Peter: Do you think a narrative section or some comment section for 
	justifying or explaining the rationale for their choices on this questionaire would provide 
	reasoning tracking capability of their answers?    (277W)
	RexBrooks: Who is the audience and are they ready to understand the value of ontology?    (277X)
	RaviSharma: Elizabeth & Peter: explaining reasoning is important to create a case based reasoning 
	type automation for the future ontology analyses.    (277Y)
	RexBrooks: Yes that was addressed to the speaker.    (277Z)
	RexBrooks: How can a questionnaire help us understand this readiness.    (2780)
	PeterYim: @Amanda: one interesting question would be ... "how are expectations from ontologists 
	different from those of knowledge engineers of the past?"    (2781)
	AmandaVizedom: @Peter: indeed, I will add this. Also, it calls to mind another: Is there any 
	consistent relationship between job labels (ontologist | knowledge engineer | ontological engineer | 
	concept modeler | ...) and activities/skills?    (2782)
	RaviSharma: Rex: I think it at least starts with peergroup capture of current state of ontology 
	training and curriculum awareness.    (2783)
	RexBrooks: I accept that, Ravi, but we also need to push it out beyond that.    (2784)
	ElizabethFlorescu: to RaviSharma: yes, the reasoning adds a lot of information on the present and 
	future developments    (2785)
	ElizabethFlorescu: to RexBrooks: the audience at this point is the ontology community itself; but 
	the results, digested and integrated in the final document will be directed to the audience of this 
	summit's audience    (2786)
	RaviSharma: Amanda: thanks, I agree we will have more time to discus these during this period.    (2787)
	RaviSharma: Peter: What are the different ways such as articles, presentations, by which we can 
	participate and contribute to this summit from now on?    (2788)
	BonnieSwart: Shouldn't we have an "ontology professional" ontology? We could model each track's 
	topics from the perspective of the ontologist: education, certification, skills, employers and 
	organizations, projects, etc.    (2789)
	RaviSharma: Bonnie great idea. I agree even if do not have a full solution, at least it will demo 
	power of logic and relationships.    (278A)
	EdDodds: For building the "value case", analysts at institutional investment houses need to be 
	targeted for education so that firms recognized as utilizing ontologies will be seen as more 
	efficient (and then, by extension, more profitable).    (278B)
	ArturoSanchez: @BonnieSwart: good point Bonnie! We actually talked about that and started putting a 
	draft concept map together. We invested much time in trying to come to agree on names for concepts 
	and relationships, and realized that for the purpose of eliciting the structure of the summit it was 
	probably an over-kill. However, if you are interested, this would be a neat and useful contribution. 
	Are you willing to contribute with this?    (278C)
	RaviSharma: Rex: Peergroup input and technology forecasting methods such as old DELPHI etc? this 
	certainly needs to capture reasoning behind practicing professionals logic and reasoning in 
	depicting current and future projections.    (278D)
	TerryLongstreth: @Ravi&Bonnie; sounds like could become an ACM Special Interest Group (SIGONTO?)    (278E)
	RaviSharma: Arturo:I would like to provide inputs to this effort and collaborate.    (278F)
	AmandaVizedom: @John: Like Barry, I am a philosopher by training. As you may guess, we might be seen 
	as representing very different schools of thought (and, I believe, different subfields). We share a 
	deep commitment to formal correctness and logical roots. Perhaps as a consequence of different 
	philosophical stances, we often differ regarding how elements of the working context *should* or 
	*should not* change the very nature of quality and correctness generally, and the skills needed.    (278G)
	JohnSchlichter: Examples where ontology is being used? How about analysis of cyber activity and 
	social networks to gauge intentions and threats?    (278H)
	RaviSharma: Great comment from the speaker(?) the very observation disturbs the experiment's current 
	state, except for thought experiments of Einstein?    (278I)
	AmandaVizedom: A side effect of the Professional Context survey might well be a better sense of the 
	running projects that use ontology.    (278J)
	JohnSchlichter: Amanda: Like you and barry, I too am a philosopher by training. Also am a management 
	consultant by training and vocation. Ontology became an operational science in the 1930's with works 
	like Husserl's "Crisis of the European Sciences" which outlined the phenomenological technique as 
	the foundation of modern science. Those are the techniques that have evolved into ontology as 
	information science focusing on the formal representation of a set of concepts within a domain and 
	the relationships between those concepts.    (278K)
	JoelNatividad: Another example: We're using it for semantic integration at a major pharma of several 
	datasources - think of it as Enterprise Application Integration 2.0 (3.0?)    (278L)
	BonnieSwart: @ Arturo & Ravi: Yes, I'd be happy to collaborate with Ravi and anyone else who would 
	be interested in creating an ontologist ontology. (My very first ontology was an "ontology" 
	ontology, so there's a neat alignment with the idea of building an "ontologist" ontology!)    (278M)
	RaviSharma: Barry and Amanda: There are many Ontology based applications in Bio, Bioinformatics 
	(genetics) and Medicine (SNOMED) and many new initiatives in NIC, NIH etc. But I feel even there we 
	do not clearly understand how to integrate or interoperate different levels or cross ontology 
	practices?    (278N)
	EdDodds: There are many business folks who understand the value of taxonomies -- and I think can be 
	persuaded that, by analog, ontologies will be beneficial.    (278O)
	JohnSchlichter: To Barry's original point, a way to advance ontology is to distinguish what ontology 
	is not.    (278P)
	RaviSharma: Yes Thanks Peter.    (278Q)
	AmandaVizedom: @EdDodds -- Indeed! As I learned at Taxonomy Boot Camp a few weeks ago, and learned 
	much about the road from there. I was pleased to learn of the extent to which folks in that world 
	are reaching up the semantic spectrum on their own.    (278R)
	ArturoSanchez: @Bonnie & Ravi: great! Please, do collaborate on that ... and--if you do not 
	mind--keep me in the loop as I am very interested in the exercise ... my contact is on the slides I 
	presented today and also on my Ontolog entry. I also see Ravi's contact at his Ontolog entry, but do 
	not see yours.    (278S)
	EdDodds: The push toward international accounting standards, xbrl is a current situation which can 
	be used as a teaching example of a community becoming aware of the utility of a standardized 
	taxonomy/description approach.    (278T)
	BonnieSwart: @John: one of the first topics I address when introducing any ontology-based idea is 
	titled "What is an Ontology and, More Importantly, What isn't".    (278U)
	Tracy Safran SAIC/EVS: Is there a central wiki with information on people/projects/training?    (278V)
	JohnSchlichter: @Bonnie: do you have a presentation on that topic?    (278W)
	BonnieSwart: @John: not really; I usually address the "What isn't" part in one or two slides, 
	tailored to a specific audience.    (278X)
	RaviSharma: Arturo: Thanks and Steve Ray many thanks.    (278Y)
	RaviSharma: Also Barry many thanks.    (278Z)
	ArturoSanchez: @Ravi: my pleasure.    (2790)
	BonnieSwart: @Arturo: I keep forgetting to update my wiki page -- I'll put my info up later today.    (2791)
	JohnSchlichter: @Amanda: thanks. Please connect with me at jschlichter-at-opmexperts.com.    (2792)
	AmandaVizedom: @Bonnie, Ravi, John: Yes. It's important to know, though, that many people have 
	advanced such models, mostly based on a particular theory or opinion exclusively. We need the 
	critical collaboration to get a more informed answer.    (2793)
	ArturoSanchez: @Bonnie&Ravi: Great! look forward to cooperating with both of you    (2794)
	JoelNatividad: @Peter: To the wiki question, will there be a new purple wiki using PMWX/SMW (as a 
	sem wiki advocate) for the initiative?    (2795)
	PeterYim: @Joel ... yes, PSMW (purple semantic media wiki) ... that's the plan ... Ken Baclawski's 
	team (NEU) and my team (CIM3) are working on content migration now    (2796)
	SteveRay: Thanks for your participation. Talk to you all soon.    (2797)
	ArturoSanchez: @all: gotta go now ... great session ... thanks y'all    (2798)
	PeterYim: Thank you, everyone ... great session ... bye!    (2799)
	JoelNatividad: plaudits to all the speakers, and especially to Peter!    (279A)
	PeterYim: Thanks, Joel.    (279B)
    -- end of chat session --    (24IY)

An Open Invitation    (24J2)

If you do find this initiative interesting or useful, we cordially invite you to join us in the "Ontology Summit 2010" virtual discourse that will be taking place in the next 3 months or so, and to the face-to-face workshop that will be held on 15 & 16-March-2010 as part of the NIST Interoperability Week in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA.    (24J3)

Audio Recording of this Session    (24J7)

(the recording below represents the raw audio file; due to the glitches we had with the conferencing system, this recording will need to be further edited and cleaned up, when we can get around to it.)    (25MX)

For the record ...    (24JF)

How To Join (while the session is in progress)    (24JG)