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Ontology Summit 2010: Panel Session-2 - "Training Content for Future Ontologists" - Thu 14-Jan-2010

Ontology Summit 2010 Theme: "Creating the Ontologists of the Future"

  • Ontology Summit 2010: Panel Session-2 Topic: "What's in the Brain of an Ontologist -- The Strawman's Proposal"
  • Co-chairs: Professor MichaelGruninger (University of Toronto, Canada) & Dr. LeoObrst (MITRE, US)
  • Panelists:
    • Professor BarrySmith (University at Buffalo, US)
    • Professor ChristopherMenzel (Texas A&M University, US)
    • Dr. PierreGrenon (KMi, Open University, UK)
    • Dr. RobertStevens (University of Manchester, UK) (in absentia)
    • Dr. AldoGangemi (ISTC-CNR, Italy)

Conference Call Details

  • Date: Thursday, 14-January-2010
  • Start Time: 10:30am PDT / 1:30pm EDT / 7:30pm CET / 6:30pm GMT / 18:30 UTC
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Attendees

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Resources

Theme: Ontology Summit 2010 - Creating the Ontologists of the Future

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" and was launched on 10-Dec-2009. Like previous years, this Ontology Summit will comprise of three months of virtual discourse, over our archived mailing lists, wiki, and virtual panel sessions (like this one), and will culminate in a 2-day face-to-face workshop/symposium to be held on Mon & Tue, 15 & 16-March-2010 at NIST (Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA.)

  • Session Topic: What's in the Brain of an Ontologist -- The Strawman's Proposal
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.
In this session, the co-chairs will present a strawman (see below) on what we would expect an ontologist to know. Our expert panel, made up of educators, trainers and employers of ontologists, as well as practicing professional ontologists, will then take turns to provide their input regarding the proposed "content" and share their insights on the topic. The session will then be opened to all participants for Q&A and discussion with the co-chairs and the panel.

The Strawman Proposal

Formal Foundations

  • Mathematics and Computer Science: Set theory, category theory, formal languages, formal machines, data models
  • Logic: Formal Logic, syntax and semantics
  • Semantics: Formal Semantics, Philosophy of Language
  • Ontology: Formal Ontology

Knowledge Representation Languages

  • First-Order Logic, Common Logic
  • RDF
  • OWL and Description Logics
  • SWRL, RIF, Prolog
  • SKOS

Automated Reasoning

  • Refutation Theorem Proving
  • Tableaux-based Theorem Proving
  • Model Generation

Ontological Engineering

  • Design Methodologies
  • Ontology Analysis Techniques (e.g. OntoClean)
  • Ontology Mapping
  • Ontology Repositories
  • Software Tools (Computer-Assisted Ontological Engineering)

Existing Ontologies - An ontologist should be familiar with widely used ontologies as well as ontologies that have been proposed or adopted as parts of international standards.

  • WordNet
  • Folksonomies
  • Taxonomies
  • Topic Maps
  • Dublin Core
  • Bioinformatics
    • Gene Ontology
    • OBO
    • Biomedical ontologies such as those found in BioPortal
  • GoodRelations
  • Foundational / Upper Ontologies
    • Cyc
    • BFO
    • DOLCE
    • ISO 15926
    • SUMO
  • PSL (ISO 18629)
  • Time Ontologies
  • Mereotopologies
  • Enterprise Ontology
  • Semantic Web Services (WSMO, OWL-S, SWSO)

Applications

  • Bioinformatics
  • Semantic Web Technologies
  • Manufacturing Systems / Supply Chain Integration
  • E-Commerce
  • Information Retrieval
  • Computational Linguistics

Agenda & Proceedings

Ontology Summit 2010 Launch

  • Session Format: this is a virtual session conducted over an augmented conference call
    • 1. Opening - co-chairs (5 min.)
    • 2. Presenting the strawman proposal - co-chairs (15 min.)
    • 3. Critique by the Panel - ... (6 x 5 min.)
    • 4. Q & A and open discussion - All (30~45 min.) -- please refer to process above
    • 6. Conclusion / Follow-up - co-chairs (5 min.)

Transcript of the online chat during the session

see raw transcript here.

(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.

-- begin of chat session --

Peter P. Yim:

.

Welcome to: Ontology Summit 2010: Panel Session-2 - "Training Content for the Future Ontologists" - Thu 14-Jan-2010

  • Ontology Summit 2010 Panel Session-2 Topic: "What's in the Brain of an Ontologist -- The Strawman's Proposal"
  • Panelists:

o Professor Barry Smith (University at Buffalo, US)

o Professor Christopher Menzel (Texas A&M University, US)

o Dr. Pierre Grenon (KMi, Open University, UK)

o Dr. Robert Stevens (University of Manchester, UK) (in absentia)

o Dr. Aldo Gangemi (ISTC-CNR, Italy)

.

please refer to session page at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_01_14

.

anonymous1 morphed into Ed Dodds

anonymous morphed into JessicaTurner

anonymous morphed into Chuck Turnitsa

anonymous1 morphed into Matthew West

anonymous morphed into Bradley Shoebottom

anonymous morphed into Elizabeth Florescu

Fabian Neuhaus: Peter I am on the phone

anonymous morphed into Tim Williams

anonymous morphed into Bobbin Teegarden

Michelle Raymond: I've called in twice. Very garbled. Are others having difficulty with Audio?

Fabian Neuhaus: Michelle, audio seems fine to me

anonymous1 morphed into Joanne Luciano

Lisa Zilinski morphed into Lisa Zilinski

Michelle Raymond: After Peter mutes us, I'll see if it improves and will then retry if neeeded.

Steve Ray: @Michelle - you are loud and clear on my end as well.

Michelle Raymond: Whew, third time's the charm. Just called back and all clear. Thanks.

anonymous morphed into Susan Matney

Peter P. Yim: Michael is taking us through the Strawman Proposal at:

http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_01_14#nid26HW

anonymous morphed into JulitaBermejoAlonso

Arturo Sanchez: @(Leo+Michael): first recommendation is to clarify if the goal is to create a Body of

Knowledge or Curricular Recommendations, or both. As mentioned before, the recommendations put

forward by ACM/IEEE-CS contain examples of how to put together both.

Arturo Sanchez: @(Leo+Michael): question ... it is not clear to me why Prolog is presented as a

knowledge representation language (not a big deal) ... I'd just like to know the rationale ...

Ravi Sharma: Domain of Applications or Domain of Ontologies

Ravi Sharma: What is Enterprise ontology? is it a structure of organization or all cells of Zachman

framework?

Joanne Luciano: Ontology Evaluation?

Bradley Shoebottom: Yes, on computer science. I am a historian

Steve Ray: @Arturo, for the record could you provide a link to the ACM recommendations?

Ravi Sharma: Why not FGDC Metadata and also OGC (geolocation standards) related ontologies such as

Geophysical and geo databases, areas e.g. Dr. Rob Raskin's interests areas at JPL, MSFC etc.

Giancarlo Guizzardi: @(Michael+Leo): following Arturos proposal. One very interesting source of

inspiration is the "Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK)" -

http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok.

Arturo Sanchez: @Giancarlo: tante grazie!

Matthew West: I like everything I see on this list, but I think at least one thing is missing, and

that is something of philosophical ontology. What I think is needed is something of the basic

ontological distinctions and commitments, e.g. between classes and particulars, between 3D and 4D

individuals, modal logic and possible worlds. I don't think you need to be able to practice

philosophical ontology, but you do need an appreciation.

Giancarlo Guizzardi: @Arturo: prego

Matthew West: Sorry I have to leave now. I will try to come back later.

Arturo Sanchez: @SteveRay: the ACM/IEEE-CS Recommendations can be seen at

http://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendations

JulitaBermejoAlonso: Personally, I miss the use of ontologies for software engineering, as part of

the Applications in the proposal

Ravi Sharma: Giancarlo it takes us to IEEE Education homepage??

Peter P. Yim: the person who just type his/her input into the "hand-queue space" ... you can take that

out by pressing the "hand" button again ... and please type your input into the field left of the

send button (and then click "send")

Todd Schneider: If we're also addressing the engineering of ontologies, then the strawman list is

deficient w.r.t. engineering.

Giancarlo Guizzardi: @RaviSharma: its supposed to take us directly to the SWEBOK homepage (inside

IEEE)

JulitaBermejoAlonso: Thanks, my mistake

Joanne Luciano: I'm wondering if there it wouldn't be good (tagging onto Barry's points) a module on

ontology communities of practice / logistics / ontology development in practice in the communigty.

Arturo Sanchez: @(Leo+Michael): within Ontological Engineering, I wonder how the actual incremental

and cooperative building of ontologies with 'domain experts' is reflected ...

Ravi Sharma: giancarlo: but it does not, can you provide the direct link

Giancarlo Guizzardi: perhaps this one: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok/htmlformat

Giancarlo Guizzardi: or better: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok/html/contents

Giancarlo Guizzardi: does it work?

Arturo Sanchez: @RaviSharma: there is an extra period in the URL that does not belong ...

http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok

GaryBergCross: Would like to see more on the lifecycle methodology to build and maintain

ontologies.

Ravi Sharma: Integration: So where are we with respect to ariving at integration standards, methods,

examples of ontology integration)

Arturo Sanchez: @(Leo+Michael+ChrisMenzel): maybe we need to include 'Interoperability', which

includes 'Integration'

Ed Dodds: fwiw - If folks use their wikiname name format here in the soaphub chat when Peter imports

the transcript into the wiki after the event, your name will take folks directly to your profile

when clicked

Ravi Sharma: Integration: There are also iter-and- intra domain (application)integration

methodologies.

Todd Schneider: FOL is a knowledge representation language for Foundation of Mathematics.

Joanne Luciano: Agree with need for uses/application of ontolgies (integration) This will feed into

Evaluation later. Also, in applicaitons - how to determine if one can re-use an ontology for a new

appplication

Ravi Sharma: Another suggestion, are we aiming at further drill down in the content of the strawman?

This way we could create onto-education profiles and types of courses and contents as well as

examples?

Joanne Luciano: (I need to go to the CSHALS organizers meeting) Conference on Semantics in Healthcare

and Life Sciences (CSHALS) http://www.iscb.org/cshals2010

Amanda Vizedom: @Michael: regarding how to incorporate feedback: I'm thinking that this discussion

should be reflected in the Requirements Survey, in addition to today's discussion and the

post-analysis you and Leo may be planning. Some of it already is, but I'm picking up some additional

questions and choices to add. Not to the fine-grained level of specific languages, but to the

question of what knowledge and skills ontologists need now.

Giancarlo Guizzardi: Regarding foundations, I believe that we should have represented in a curriculum

issues such as Meta-Level Criteria for classifiying ontological choices such as: Revisionary vs.

Descriptive, 3D vs. 4D. But also basic issues such as the epistemological foundations behind

ontological foundations (realism, moderate constructivism, radical constructivism), as well as basic

notions such as Ontological Commitment

Todd Schneider: What is the role of the ontologist, as being considered in these discussions, with

respect to the development of systems (that would use their work product)?

Rex Brooks: I'm wondering why, if we are focusing on how to develop the ontologists of the future, we

are not outlining the values we would like them to have; such as focus on accuracy, ability to

prioritize the development of ontologies for practical uses, etc? The point is what values do we

want these ontologists to reflect in their work once they learn the things outlined in the strawman?

Ravi Sharma: Giancarlo: these would fall into categories such as reasoning, ontology models?

GaryBergCross: Ontologies can help with data integration, but also better knowledge engineering so

its connections to those methods should be part of the training and not just the knowledge

representation part of KE.

Amanda Vizedom: Meant to add, for all: this brings up the point that some of the questions and topics

in the surveys and discussions may appear to overlap, but here we can see how they differ and

complement each other. Michael and Leo have carefully scoped this strawman and discussion to view

things through lens of training content, and the survey segment now out also views things through

this lens. The Requirements survey (coming soon!) will take a POV more situated in the ontology

development and use world, asking what training is needed from that perspective. Both POVs will

inform the full-scope collaboration of figuring out what training for ontologists should cover.

Giancarlo Guizzardi: @RaviSharma: the first are basic meta-level criteria for classifying (and

choosing) between foundational ontologies. The latter are general basic foundations on the field.

These are not orthogonal though

Amanda Vizedom: @Leo: music to an epistemologist's ears!

Todd Schneider: It may be necessary to come to a consensus as to the roles and responsibilities of

someone who undergoes the proposed training.

Ravi Sharma: Leo: I would suggest similar to what I did in the reply to Giancarlo a while ago on

Epistemology, words that explain Axiology and if you permit from other philosophies (non-Greek)

notions of wisdom, knowledge, understanding, cognition-verification, etc.

Ed Dodds: Mind-mapping tools maybe...

Arturo Sanchez: Need to step out for a while ...

GaryBergCross: Yes, we should including methodfs across the ontology lifecycle - knowledge

elicitation, structuring and ontology development, validation etc, . The structuring procedure is

the one people usually focus on in ontological engineering.

anonymous1 morphed into Jim Disbrow

Amanda Vizedom: @Todd: In case Michael and Leo don't have chance to catch up with chat comments

real-time: because that would be such an enormous task, and probably not one we could do while

respecting the multidisciplinary nature of the field, the idea here instead is to come up with a

fairly complete set of content-bins -- for example, things that might be turned into modules in

variuos ways for various purposes.

Ravi Sharma: Leo and mike: How do we balance and parse out the various portions of the Strawman?

For example into categories of future ontologists such as :

1. Philosophical fouindations of Ontology,

2. Ontology languages.

3. IT tools for ontology

4. Domain specialist ontologist etc.

Rex Brooks: @Ravi: Let's not leave out the application and societal results (benefits).

Ravi Sharma: All: We need to discuss when we can reach ontology reasonability test? For example if I

have deevlped triples and serach criteria that give me the short list better than taxonomies give,

is that enough of a result or we have better pass or filtering ideas?

Amanda Vizedom: @Fabian: Yes! I might suggest, correspondingly: Classic approaches to big modeling

issues, especially competing approaches, from where they have grown, and the tradeoffs of each.

Michelle Raymond: @ Rex and Amanda: The skills developed though addressing the training content must

produce both 1)capabilities of an ontologist (model generation, understanding of semantic and

syntactic choices on ontology development, mapping, ...) and 2) characteristics of an ontologist

(produces consistent information structures, keys in on relevant existing ontologies for reuse or

extension, results both human and machine readable...).

Ravi Sharma: Rex: those were in 4.? however left out Societal results that will probably provide new

ways of collective knowledge, analyses etc. yes important.

Rex Brooks: @ Ravi: That's the what I was reaching for with my comment on the values we want to

develop in our future ontologists.

Michael Uschold: On the topic of uses or applications of ontologies, see this paper:

http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/~horrocks/Teaching/cs646/Papers/uschold99.pdf

Rex Brooks: Thanks Michael Uschold, I just downloaded the paper.

Fabian Neuhaus: Good point by Giancarlo: ontology life cycle management should be added to the list

Todd Schneider: Amanda, having a complete list of topics and how they relate is essential, but the

purpose also needs to be explicated.

Michael Uschold: In addition to epistomology, noted by Leo, a carriculum should also include content

on semiotics, distinguishing between types, tokens and meanings.

Pierre Grenon: @Fabian: the initial curriculum should reflect ontology life cycle

Ravi Sharma: I suggest adding UML (ODM) to the languages and Financial Services to the Applications

list in the Strawman

Ravi Sharma: Great link Michael it also supports my sugestion on languages: Ontology representation

languages- (e.g., UML, Express, Ontolingua, XML) Knowledge interchange languages: (e.g., KIF,

PIF[7], CDIF) Translation tools: (e.g., Ontolingua translators, CDIFtools, StepTools, ... (lots!))

Distributed Objects: (e.g., CORBA, COM)

Rex Brooks: Semiotics yes!

Ed Dodds: What about developing some social media mechanism which nudges institutional shareholders

to ask (during quarterly analysts concalls) if C-Suites actually know what an ontology is and

whether they use them in their enterprise?

JulitaBermejoAlonso: I suppose all you already know a book on Ontological Engineering that reviews

most of the topics in the Proposal. A good starting point... at least for me from scratch

Amanda Vizedom: On earlier point regarding evaluation: complementary but slightly different-angled

point: Content is thin here, but it is still worth covering: how to develop operational ontology

tests. That is, taking Fabian's point about staring at axioms and not understanding, testing and

evaluation are not only ontology-internal matters. Where ontology is developed as part of a system

(including not only the technology, but also the processes to be supported and the people involved

in those processes), the effects of ontology modeling choices on the function of the system should

be tested. This area is underdeveloped, but *thinking* about it can nevertheless be taught, along

with examples where available.

Ravi Sharma: Michael Uschold this could be required reading or reference as it deals with integration:

and many other areas Figure 4: Data Access via Shared Ontology

Giancarlo Guizzardi: Another point regarding "domains of applications"...one point I see missing

there is the ontological Analysis, (Re)design and integration of Modeling Languages and Reference

Models (e.g., ISO standards). This has been one of the first application areas of (philosophical)

ontology in computer science and there is still a very active community on the use of ontological

theories as foundations for conceptual modeling languages and methods

Amanda Vizedom: @Todd: Can you say more about what you mean? I am thinking that the purpose would be

more specific to a particular program or curriculum, whereas this would be more raw material for

forming such a thing to serve a purpose. Is that different from what you mean by "purpose?"

anonymous1 morphed into Aldo Gangemi

Aldo Gangemi: I'm in, still on time for contrib?

Peter P. Yim: Community input is solicited through:

(1) participation in virtual panel sessions like this,

(2) through the [ontology-summit] mailing list,

(3) through the wiki pages marked "Community Input", and

(4) by responding to the surveys that are coming out

... see details in the Resources section on today's session page

at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2010_01_14#nid26H4

... and the Ontology Summit 2010 Homepage at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2010

Ravi Sharma: Michael:when did you publish this valuable paper?

Amanda Vizedom: Thanks for paper, Michael, very helpful!

GaryBergCross: The analogy to SW engineering also provides the idea of a difference between a

programming course oten using a particular language and a more general SW Engineering course where

one learns more abstract concepts. The same very rough course distinction may apply here.

Ravi Sharma: Amanda -I would like to continue to echo the same.

Todd Schneider: Amanda, this goes back to a request I made of Barry, What's an ontology for training

ontologists? The inclusion of a subject or module should include a justification, and in that

justification a purpose, goal or intent of including the module I would expect to be embedded.

Michelle Raymond: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OntologySummit2008_QualityAndGatekeeping

1. (not relevant here)

2. The ontology is expressed in a formal language with a well-defined syntax.

3. The authors of the ontology provide the required metadata.

4. The ontology has a clearly specified and clearly delineated scope.

5. Successive versions of an ontology are clearly identified.

6. The ontology is adequately labeled.

Michelle Raymond: My previous cut-paste comments are from Ontology Summit 2008 and identify

characteristics of an ontology. This can lead us to what must ontologist training include.

Ravi Sharma: Leo: one of the topics we discussed was that for OOR? similarly Staging and E-Commerce

etc. Does this get employed in Enterprise ontologies?

GaryBergCross: A tutorial on ONTOLOGICAL ENGINEERING by Asunción Gómez-Pérez had these topics:

Reuse and Sharing

Problems in Building KBS from Scratch

Problems when you reuse/share knowledge in KBS

The Knowledge Sharing Initiative

Definitions of Ontologies

Ontological Commitments

Components of an Ontology

Types of Ontologies

Libraries of Ontologies

What does an explicit ontology look like?

Principles for the Design of Ontologies

Ontologies versus knowledge bases

Uses of Ontologies

Ravi Sharma: Michael Grüninger: UML and XML?

Fabian Neuhaus: I would suggest to restrict the languages to languages with a model theoretic

semantic

Michael Uschold: How to include content on ontology applications? Have a module that examines a small

number of diverse case studies. For each, consider the original competency questions for the

ontology, what services the ontology provides, where it fits into the architecture of the production

software, how the ontology evolved over time, etc. This is a big picture view. Another way to

include content on ontolgoy uses, is to take a larger number of case studies and analyze the

different benefits that the ontology supported.

Ravi Sharma: Gary: Real good List certainly candidate for courseware and also specialization.

Rex Brooks: Do we want to include the likes of SPARQL, when thinking about practical uses. We're

planning to use it in specifying and querying emergency management policies for distribution of

messages as well as within various SOAs.

Amanda Vizedom: @Rex: Good question, especially as many people are now using SPARQL and SPIN to work

around limitations in OWL.

Ravi Sharma: Leo: Model theoretic Semantics is another area.

Amanda Vizedom: Under Ontology Lifecycle > Design, and in tune with Barry's point about considering

the humans involved: Existing training sometimes includes the formal aspects of requirements

analysis, but I've seen too many "trained" ontologists with no idea how to gather requirements from

human users or for an application context that includes human users. [I mean this separately from

the topic of knowledge elicitation techniques and skill, though there is a corresponding lack of

training there).

Ravi Sharma: MOF and RDF are two meta-concepts that map into the laguage as well as interoperability

considerations?

anonymous1 morphed into Bart Gajderowicz

Ravi Sharma: Aldo: I agree with your expressions.

[ ppy comment: believe Ravi was referring to Todd's comment and not Aldo ]

Ravi Sharma: We definitely could be helped if we had a decision tree that is ontologydriven

(reasoning based on interest of the learner-student)?

Fabian Neuhaus: Suggested answer to Todd's question: after the training the person should be able to

deploy a high-quality ontology (in cooperation with domain experts)

Aldo Gangemi: how to unmute?

Pierre Grenon / Michael Grüninger: *3

Aldo Gangemi: i still cannot unmute, maybe skype is an issue?

Giancarlo Guizzardi: Aldo: probably it wont work on skype

Aldo Gangemi: i cannot digit the star on skype

Michael Uschold: Aldo: i had this problem, get a new version of skype, it handles this.

Giancarlo Guizzardi: Aldo: I had the same problem in the past

Rex Brooks: When using Skype you may need to try to get the numberpad in the Skype display, you can

use your cursor to press *3.

Aldo Gangemi: i am using the cursor, but skype does not do anything after a * pressing

Aldo Gangemi: and i have a quite recent version of skype, maybe the mac version has issues

Rex Brooks: That was my best suggestion, sorry. If the computer numberpad or numbers don't work.

Aldo Gangemi: ok i'll do the chat, better than nothing

Aldo Gangemi: My main points:

Aldo Gangemi: the strawman is mostly irrelevant for what we want to know about the mind of an

ontologist

Pierre Grenon: Aldo, it's about the brain

Ravi Sharma: Aldo: mind is a whole new area and yes it does relate to cognition at very deep

theoretical and philosophy-logic levels.

Peter P. Yim: @MichaelGruninger ... I'll unmute ALL for Aldo

Rex Brooks: @Aldo; this is in line with my earlier comments on values. I think we need an ontology of

values which could be studied by the future ontologist early on as a way to navigate the bewildering

mass of categories in the strawman.

Aldo Gangemi: yes, that's what i wanted to say

Matthew West: I'm afraid I need to leave now. Good discussion.

Peter P. Yim: thanks, Matthew!

GaryBergCross: Developing an ontology of the ontology topic is too hard. Let's just build a taxonomy

for it.

Michelle Raymond: @Gary, I think we're starting with just a List.

Michelle Raymond: Hierarchy is what is forthcoming

JulitaBermejoAlonso: @Todd: I had gone through a on-my-own training on most of the topics in the

proposal. As a result, an awful lot of information and background that had to be filtered and traded

off to accommodate the domain ontology I wanted to develop. Most of the topics suggested in the

proposal provided the means. Not the actual expertise to develop the ontology.

Amanda Vizedom: I like that suggestion very much.

GaryBergCross: A curriculum view seems approapriate to organize "Training Content for the Future

Ontologists" but it doesn't say what courses we would divide the content into and how to sequence

them.

Michelle Raymond: Crossing Automated Reasoning, Ontological Engineering, KR Languages, and Existing Ontologies --

Use case:

Ontology technology is critical in development of a situation understanding system

for interactive real-time reporting using open standards.

Providing key data for situation understanding requires: gathering relevant information,

formatting information for exchange, transferring information to users/systems,

and presenting information to users.

Continued situation awareness requires: data updates, sharing information, associating new data inputs.

For example, Effective emergency response requires organized notification and up to the minute situation

awareness throughout the emergency. An added challenge is consistent presentation of building

geometry and semantic information using accessible, broadly adopted, easy to understand, open

formats that are accurate and maintainable over time.

- DeborahMacPherson, Michelle Raymond: Ontology training should address meeting the needs of this use case, (and certainly many others.)

Giancarlo Guizzardi: I am afraid I have to leave now. Thanks for the great discussion.

Peter P. Yim: thank you, Giancarlo

Giancarlo Guizzardi: bye, Peter

Steve Ray: I also must leave early. Thanks.

Peter P. Yim: bye, Steve

Ravi Sharma: Amanda: I would be happy to work with you for such a survey although we can also work

with Arturo?

Ravi Sharma: Amanda: I see the difference between your and arturo's areas.

Amanda Vizedom: @Rex: I'd agree that many (especially OWL-focused) newer ontologists focus too much

on classes of objects and not enough of relationships (not so true of those who've worked in more

expressive languages, but that's not the majority). However, I'd argue that seeing this in terms of

verbs and nouns leads to more problems, as it conflates the linguistic objects and the conceptual

objects. IMHO, separating those is *essential* to having an ontology that can support uses / users

across languages. In fact, it's essential even to reusability across community-specific dialects.

Ravi Sharma: next advance will be strengths of relationships and some relevance ranking for the

desired outcome.

GaryBergCross: ON the relation to language DOLCE aims at "capturing the ontological stands that

shape natural language and human cognition." They are clear on the assumption/commitent that the

surface structure of "natural language and the so-called commonsense have ontological relevance. As

a consequence, the categories refer to cognitive artifacts more or less depending on human

perception, cultural imprints and social conventions."

Ravi Sharma: especially Leo and Jim

Pierre Grenon: @Amanda second this

Pierre Grenon: which is also why teaching ontology should not start with OWL or worse Protege..

Amanda Vizedom: @Pierre: indeed!

Pierre Grenon: @amanda: and only those with security clearance ought to get taught linguistics

Rex Brooks: @Amanda: I don't disagree.

Michelle Raymond: @Pierre: agreed! That is certification of a tool or language NOT knowledge of

Ontology

Aldo Gangemi: i start my tutorials by teaching linguistics and semiotics it works

Aldo Gangemi: thanks all

Peter P. Yim: thank you all ... great session ... bye

Peter P. Yim: - conference call session ended 12:26pm PST -

Amanda Vizedom: I take Gary's point about respecting the cognitive significance of language. I think,

though, that these are not in conflict if the support for concept-to-linguistic object (multiple)

mapping is rich enough.

Ravi Sharma: Thanks to all.

GaryBergCross: Aldo Thanks for the detail on how you start the course. can you provide an Outline?

Pierre Grenon: @aldo: you mean you manage to teach them linguistics

Pierre Grenon: @amanda: linguistics ought to be the ontology of language

Joanne Luciano: I've had to be on another call and didn't realize this was still going on.

GaryBergCross: There's a very practical side to some "linguistic analysis" that ilustrates

underlying concepts we have about rality. Even Object-oreirnted analysis used these.

Joanne Luciano: Has there been any discussion of an 'agile' or incremental approach to teaching

ontology engineering?

Pierre Grenon: not enough about the incremental

Ed Dodds: Thanks all! The Best Buy reference was a helpful commercial case study

GaryBergCross: Joanne, do you mean the use of an incremental method to build ontologies?

Joanne Luciano: yes Gary

Joanne Luciano: And along those lines, in some efforts I've been involved in, we've been using

minimal information.... to define the first set of terms to implement so that the ontology can be

used in short order

GaryBergCross: Well I agree with importance of incremental scoping and focused improvments. But we

left such details out along with top-down versus bottom up approaches and much more on the

methodology side.

Joanne Luciano: I would like to see a ciriculum that covers theory and practice - and practice in

more than one setting

GaryBergCross: I can imagine an intro course that combines these and then advancd courses for each.

GaryBergCross: Have to go, bye all.

-- end of chat session --

  • ... More Questions
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Session ended 2010.01.14-12:26 pm PST

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