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Ontology Summit 2010: Online Survey

... Allow us to thank everyone who has participated here for their input.

Findings and a preliminary syntheses of the results will be presented during ConferenceCall_2010_03_04 ... please join us! (see RSVP details on the session page.)

Conveners of Ontology Summit 2010 were invited to participate in the following 3 studies ...

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

As part of the Ontology Summit 2010 series of activities, three online questionnaires have been developed and launched to help collect community/expert opinion and insight on the subject matter. Ontology summit conveners and invited experts are invited to provide their input through these online survey forms on/before the deadline of Thursday 11-Mar-2010 (end-of-day US Eastern Standard Time, UTC -5:00).

The three questionnaires are designed to:

  • 1. conduct a survey on present ontology education/training content and quality ... more
  • 2. conduct a survey to elicit information about the knowledge and skills ontologists need, or are expected to have, in a variety of working contexts ... more
  • 3. conduct a real-time delphi study* to elicit expert opinion and shared vision on the future of ontologists, their education and the field of ontology. [*to access this questionnaire for the first time, you will have to register yourself first ... and then, when prompted, enter the study code: "ontology"] ... more

Ontology Summit 2010 participants are vigorously encouraged to respond. In addition, a wider-ranging solicitation for input (especially to Survey 2) has also been extended to the broader ontology community, and to neighboring communities of interest, via an ad-hoc collection of professional networks and social networking tools.

If you are currently or potentially,

  • (a) an educator/trainer of ontologists, please respond to Survey-1
  • (b) an employer/manager of ontologists or ontology-related professionals, please respond to Survey-2
  • (c) an ontologist or aspiring ontologist yourself, please respond to Survey-2
  • (d) an ontology domain expert, someone who can influence the future of this field or a visionary; and is someone who believes in the potential impact of Ontology, please join our RTDelphi Study-3

... we need your input and insights. See the extended description of each of the survey instruments below for more details, especially, regarding whether a particular survey is for you. For those who assume different roles [ ontologist: educator | employer | practitioner ] in relation to the ontology domain in real life, you are welcome to make multiple responses to survey-2 and study-3 more than once. However, please make sure you respond in just one role at a time (and make sure you have clearly indicated which role/perspective you are coming from.)

The responses from these questionnaires will be used to produce reports that will be presented at the OntologySummit2010_Symposium, which will be held at NIST (Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA) on March 15th and 16th, 2010.

... Please note that responses to our surveys and studies will be made available as open content to our community and the public at-large under the prevailing Ontolog open IPR policy.

... lastly, please help forward this invitation to anyone you know (other potentially interested & relevant parties) who could contribute to making this Summit (and the studies we are conducting) a success.

Note: by "ontology" here, we mean "Ontology for Information Science" and not "Ontology" as the philosophical study that is a part of metaphysics.

The Survey on Present Education / Training Content & Quality

by Arturo Sanchez & AntonyGalton

We are collecting information to establish the nature and extent of current educational and training provision in Ontology throughout the world. To this end, we invite you to participate in this survey if you are currently providing education and training in Ontology and ontology-related disciplines.

On the "Content (Present)" aspect, our mission is to survey the existing provision of ontology education with regard to curricular content. We would like to find out: Which educational programs are there, if any, that are mainly or entirely devoted to ontology and related topics? Within other educational programs, what modules/courses are there which are mainly or entirely devoted to ontology and related topics? Are there any other programs or modules/courses with sufficient ontologically relevant content? Are there curricular models (a.k.a. curricular guidelines) that include ontology-related topics?

On the "Quality (Present)" aspect, our mission is to survey the existing forms of quality assurance (e.g., accreditation, certification, and licensure) for programs, and professionals. We would like to find out: By what bodies, if any, are the programs identified as having substantial ontological content currently accredited? By what bodies, if any, are ontology professionals currently certified? What other forms of quality assurance exist that may be relevant to the track mission?

Please refer questions and comments to: "Sanchez, Arturo" <asanchez[at]unf.edu> and "Antony Galton" <A.P.Galton[at]exeter.ac.uk>

The Survey on Ontologists Training Requirements

by Amanda Vizedom, Fabian Neuhaus & PeterYim

The objective of the survey is to discover and clarify requirements for ontologist training, from the perspective of consumers of such training: trainees, employers, and others who might rely on the quality of such training and/or the reliability of any certification it produces.

This survey is designed to elicit information about the knowledge and skills ontologists need, or are expected to have, in a variety of working contexts. In addition to harvesting such knowledge from currently working ontologists, the survey extends inquiry to other potential stake-holders in the training of future ontologists: those who might look to such training as a solution to changing job requirements or market conditions, and those who hire, manage, evaluate, or otherwise depend upon the work of ontologists. By such broad-ranging requirements gathering, the Ontology Summit Organizing Committee hopes to produce a clearer, more realistic picture of the needs to be met by training of ontologists.

Additionally, the Organizing Committee is deeply aware of varied and multidisciplinary nature of ontology today. A single set of requirements, satisfying the needs and expectations of all current working contexts, is unlikely. In the design of ontology training curricula, it will therefore be important to know not only what content might be covered, but also how the elements of that content relate to various kinds of working situations and tasks that trained ontologists might face. That is, it is good to have as comprehensive a training menu as is feasible; it is even better to understand how to prioritize content and assemble curricula from that menu to suit particular training needs.

Please refer questions and comments to: "Amanda Vizedom" <amanda.vizedom[at]gmail.com>

The Real-Time Delphi (RTD) Study on the Future of Ontologists, their Education and the Field of Ontology

by Elizabeth Florescu & PeterYim

To properly craft a set of education/training material and the corresponding quality expectations to allow us to "Create the Ontologists of the Future," we need to have some idea on what the future is going to be like. With this study, we are eliciting input from ontology domain experts, those who can influence the future of this field and visionaries who understand what the potential impact of Ontology might be. We are using the online Real-Time Delphi (RTD) tools for this purpose, which would allow us to reduce the time it takes to produce results from a traditional Delphi study (which nominally takes months) to days or weeks.

The Real-Time Delphi (RTD) is a relatively new and efficient method for collecting and synthesizing expert opinions. The original Delphi technique was developed by the RAND Corporation in the late 1950s. Although it has produced many valuable insights for many around the world, it requires multiple rounds of questionnaires that can take months to complete. The big advantage of the RTD is that it is a "roundless" Delphi. There is no need for an explicit second round. The respondents participate by filling out an online questionnaire, and the results, both numerical and qualitative, are updated as responses are recorded in near "real time." Respondents can, and are encouraged to, revisit the questionnaire as many times as they want. Each time, they are shown their own responses as well as the updated answers of the others, and they can revise and change their own inputs based on this feedback.

In futurists lingo, a "development" is an event or a fact that could have a significant impact on the future of a domain. During OntologySummit2010 Panel Session-1, the community has identified a set of 16 developments, which are employed in this RTDelphi to elicit opinions and insights.

It might be useful for our RTDelphi panelist (i.e. the respondent) to quickly scan through all 16 developments before making elaborate responses, so that their input would be associated with the most appropriate question.

  • Please access this Real-Time Delphi study online questionnaire at: http://www.realtimedelphi.net/
    • to access this questionnaire for the first time, you will have to register yourself ... and then, when prompted, enter the study code: "ontology"

Please refer questions and comments to: "Elizabeth Florescu" <elizabeth.florescu[at]millennium-project.org> and "Peter Yim" <peter.yim[at]cim3.com>



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