OntologySummit2007: OntologySummit2007_Survey individual responses

OntologySummit2007_Survey/Response input from Tom Gruber

Please make sure you refer to the Ontology Summit 2007 & OntologySummit2007_Survey pages for the full context of the input.   

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Question 1 Respondant Info

Name:  Tom Gruber 

Question 2 Affiliated - I am affiliated with the following constituencies/communities (please check all that apply)

[X]  Formal ontology communities
[X]  Semantic Web communities
[  ]  Linguistic communities
[  ]  Concept Map community
[  ]  Topic Map community
[  ]  [[SEARCH]] communities
[X]  Web 2.0 communities
[  ]  Thesauri community
[  ]  Taxonomy communities
[  ]  Metadata communities
[  ]  XML communities
[X]  Applications Development, Software Engineering and Information Model communities
[  ]  System Architecture communities
[  ]  Biomedical communities
[  ]  Standards Development communities
[  ]  Other (please specify):  (Not Answered) 

Question 2a Representing - I represent the perspective of the following constituency/community (please pick one; if you want to provide input from more than one perspective, please return a separate form):

[  ]  1. Formal ontology communities
[  ]  2. Semantic Web communities
[  ]  3. Linguistic communities
[  ]  4. Concept Map community
[  ]  5. Topic Map community
[  ]  6. [[SEARCH]] communities
[X]  7. Web 2.0 communities
[  ]  8. Thesauri community
[  ]  9. Taxonomy communities
[  ]  10. Metadata communities
[  ]  11. XML communities
[  ]  12. Applications Development, Software Engineering and Information Model communities
[  ]  13. System Architecture communities
[  ]  14. Biomedical communities
[  ]  15. Standards Development communities
[  ]  16. Other (please specify):  (Not Answered) 

Question 2b Specific Community

or sub-community I am affiliated with:  folksonomy / social networking / social bookmarking community 

Question 2c Expertise Self Assessment - With respect to the perspective you are representing and providing input from, I am a/an:

[  ]  1. informed layman
[  ]  2. practitioner
[X]  3. expert
[  ]  4. other (please specify):  (Not Answered) 

Question 3a Ontology Value -

"Ontology is an enabling technology for data sharing and application integration.  
It enables "semantic mashups" -- building on others in the Web ecosystem 
to create new value." 

Question 3b Ontology Issues -

"- Many people are happy with low-level APIs and data schemas, or 
ad hoc conventions.  There is little motivation to participate in 
the creation of a community standard unless it is tied to real products 
or services. 

- People in the Web 2.0 community do not see the value of "extra" precision 
or clarity that comes from specification of an ontology.  They are 
satisfied with noisy data that is derived from raw text, 
unrestricted tags, or other bottom up data sources." 

Question 3c Ontology Problems -

"- Delivering tools or services that provide significant value and 
justify the agreement to an ontology. Ontologies are not viewed 
as valuable on their own. 

- Need a process to produce common ontologies and encourage reuse 
of existing ontologies, instead of many parties rolling their own. 

- Need an open, well-maintained clearinghouse for ontologies and 
related products and services that are enabled by them." 

Question 3d Corresponding Solutions -

"- an open, well-maintained clearinghouse for ontologies and 
related products and services that are enabled by them. 

- a clear binding of ontologies to these products and services 
so that people can find the ontology based on their functional 
requirements, rather than the domain of discourse. 

- a social / community process that rewards building on existing ontologies." 

Question 4aGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  ontology (computer science)
Gloss:  An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization (Tom Gruber/1993)
Reference (citation/url):  http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/kst/what-is-an-ontology.html
Artifact (name/version):  all of the ontologies built using Protege
- Artifact Ref. (url):  http://protege.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ProjectsThatUseProtege 

Question 4a1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[  ]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[X]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4a2 Additional Remarks -

"(Not Answered)" 

Question 4bGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  ontology (philosophy)
Gloss:  the study of being or existence
Reference (citation/url):  any philosophy textbook
Artifact (name/version):  (Not Answered)
- Artifact Ref. (url):  (Not Answered) 

Question 4b1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[X]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[  ]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4b2 Additional Remarks -

"For people building real systems and services on the Web, the 
computer science definition (ontology as semantic specification) 
is the one that fits how the term is used in widespread practice.
That is, 'ontology' (CS) when used in the context of software
engineering and information science, is a term like 'data model'
or 'knowledge representation' or 'programming language': it is one
of the elements in our toolbox for creating the digital world.
it deserves to be distinguished from these other terms because
it serves different roles -- ontology's focus is on specifying 
the constructs for representing domains of discourse or knowledge.

Specification vs. conceptualization: Some prefer to think of
an ontology as the conceptualization that it specifies; that is,
the ontology is the set of concepts and relations, independent
of any representation of it.  There is value in distinguishing
specification from specified, just as there is value in distinguishing
an abstract data model from the specific instances of the model in a database.
This view also allows us to apply objective methods such as used in 
software engineering and program semantics to evaluate the utility
of an ontology (its fitness to some requirement or context of use).
If ontology is equated with the conceptualization itself, or if it is 
considered as the branch of philosophy, the evaluation of the utility 
or correctness or value of the ontology is left to endless argumentation.
" 

Question 4cGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  ontology as method
Gloss:  (Not Answered)
Reference (citation/url):  (Not Answered)
Artifact (name/version):  (Not Answered)
- Artifact Ref. (url):  (Not Answered) 

Question 4c1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[  ]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[  ]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4c2 Additional Remarks -

"Please do not talk about ontology as a ''method''.  This confuses things.
Ontology is never a way of doing things.  It is at the very least some kind of 
document or knowledge representation or database.  If one thinks of an ontology
as a specification, then the methods used to create or apply it can be 
understood in terms of design or engineering methodologies." 

Question 4dGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  (Not Answered)
Gloss:  (Not Answered)
Reference (citation/url):  (Not Answered)
Artifact (name/version):  (Not Answered)
- Artifact Ref. (url):  (Not Answered) 

Question 4d1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[  ]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[  ]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4d2 Additional Remarks -

"(Not Answered)" 

Question 4eGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  (Not Answered)
Gloss:  (Not Answered)
Reference (citation/url):  (Not Answered)
Artifact (name/version):  (Not Answered)
- Artifact Ref. (url):  (Not Answered) 

Question 4e1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[  ]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[  ]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4e2 Additional Remarks -

"(Not Answered)" 

Question 4fGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  (Not Answered)
Gloss:  (Not Answered)
Reference (citation/url):  (Not Answered)
Artifact (name/version):  (Not Answered)
- Artifact Ref. (url):  (Not Answered) 

Question 4f1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[  ]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[  ]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4f2 Additional Remarks -

"(Not Answered)" 

Question 4gGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  (Not Answered)
Gloss (definition):  (Not Answered)
Reference (citation/url):  (Not Answered)
Artifact (name/version):  (Not Answered)
- Artifact Ref. (url):  (Not Answered) 

Question 4g1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[  ]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[  ]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4g2 Additional Remarks -

"(Not Answered)" 

Question 4hGlossary - Ontology-related 'vocabulary' and representative 'artifact' from your constituency or community:

Term:  (Not Answered)
Gloss:  (Not Answered)
Reference (citation/url):  (Not Answered)
Artifact (name/version):  (Not Answered)
- Artifact Ref. (url):  (Not Answered) 

Question 4h1 Called An Ontology - On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 means totally unlikely and 5 means almost always), would the above term or artifact be referred to as an "ontology" in your community?

[  ]  1. 1 - totally unlikely
[  ]  2. 2 - rarely
[  ]  3. 3 - sometimes
[  ]  4. 4 - quite often
[  ]  5. 5 - almost always 

Question 4h2 Additional Remarks -

"(Not Answered)" 

Question 5 Confirm Participation - where,

a 'convener' is a participant who provides substantive contribution to the [[OntologySummit2007]] 
initiative (through the online discourse, this survey, and other events leading to or during 
the workshops and the written communique process), and 

a 'co-sponsor' is an organization who is providing technical or funding support (e.g. supporting 
member(s) of its technical staff to participate as a 'convener'), and/or endorsing the objective 
of this [[OntologySummit2007]], 

[X]  I agree that my name can be listed as a 'convener' of [[OntologySummit2007]]
[X]  I will consider endorsing the [[OntologySummit2007]] communique. Please send it to me for 
review when it is ready. I will confirm my endorsement after the review.
[X]  I confirm that you may list my organization as a 'co-sponsor' for 
[[OntologySummit2007]] (details below). 

Question 5a Co-Sponsor confirmation:

Organization Name:  [[TagCommons|Tag Commons]]
Link (url) to Logo:  http://tagcommons.org/w/images/logo-3-28-07.png