Ontology Summit 2007: OntologySummit2007_Survey individual responses

OntologySummit2007_Survey/Response input from Doug Holmes

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: Doug Holmes

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

[ ] Web 2.0 communities

[ ] Thesauri community

[X] Taxonomy communities

[ ] Metadata communities

[ ] XML communities

[X] Applications Development, Software Engineering and Information Model communities

[ ] System Architecture communities

[ ] Biomedical communities

[X] 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

[X] 2. Semantic Web communities

[ ] 3. Linguistic communities

[ ] 4. Concept Map community

[ ] 5. Topic Map community

[ ] 6. SEARCH communities

[ ] 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: informal 'affiliation' with Semantic Web 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

[X] 2. practitioner

[ ] 3. expert

[ ] 4. other (please specify): (Not Answered)

Question 3a Ontology Value -

"precise specification, knowledge base for intelligent applications, machine/system interoperability, human interface/communication"

Question 3b Ontology Issues -

"(1) explaining ontology,

(2) de-mystifying ontology,

(3) illustrating/demonstrating value to users/stakeholders

(4) and, consequently securing funding - especially for R&D"

Question 3c Ontology Problems -

"(1) Describing the value of potential application(s) of ontology

(2) Convincing potential customers/developers that it is practcal

to apply related technology

(3) Helping developers/engineers to begin to use related technology

(4) helping interested developers to create "good"and practical

basic/primitve/intital ontologies

(5) Illustrating practical, working system"

Question 3d Corresponding Solutions -

"(1) Use Cases / Examples of potential application(s) of ontology

(2) Simplified Development Environment(s) for early adapters

(3) Someting like Design Patterns for developers

(4) A "critical mass" of practical, working systems"

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

Term: ontology

Gloss: formal model of some - typically application - domain

Reference (citation/url): An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization. Tom Gruber

Artifact (name/version): Pizza Ontology

- Artifact Ref. (url): http://www.co-ode.org/ontologies/pizza/pizza_20041007.owl

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 -

"standard tutorial"

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

Term: domain model

Gloss: typically a UML model of a software application domain

Reference (citation/url): Most UML textbooks

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?

[ ] 1. 1 - totally unlikely

[X] 2. 2 - rarely

[ ] 3. 3 - sometimes

[ ] 4. 4 - quite often

[ ] 5. 5 - almost always

Question 4b2 Additional Remarks -

"Also called an "Analysis Model""

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

Term: Entity Relationship Diagram

Gloss: A model of (entity) concpets and relations from which a database schema is developed

Reference (citation/url): Most RDB textbooks

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

[X] 3. 3 - sometimes

[ ] 4. 4 - quite often

[ ] 5. 5 - almost always

Question 4c2 Additional Remarks -

"yield to John Sowa"

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

Term: taxonomy

Gloss: a subsumtion model of concepts in a domain

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

[X] 3. 3 - sometimes

[ ] 4. 4 - quite often

[ ] 5. 5 - almost always

Question 4d2 Additional Remarks -

"sometimes called a "backbone" ontology"

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

Term: tag library

Gloss: informal organization of xml tags

Reference (citation/url): lots of discrete software applications developed in the 1990's

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

[X] 2. 2 - rarely

[ ] 3. 3 - sometimes

[ ] 4. 4 - quite often

[ ] 5. 5 - almost always

Question 4e2 Additional Remarks -

"this idea probably morphed into the current Web 2.0 notion of "tags" - at least

it seems like a similar notion"

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

Term: data dictionaries

Gloss: a list of natural language definitions for application specific data

Reference (citation/url): common usage

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

[X] 2. 2 - rarely

[ ] 3. 3 - sometimes

[ ] 4. 4 - quite often

[ ] 5. 5 - almost always

Question 4f2 Additional Remarks -

"a common artifact of many software systems that include a relational database as an archive"

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

Term: system knowledge base

Gloss (definition): a specification of the knowledge that is encoded and

used by a knowledge based system

Reference (citation/url): numerous KB systems

Artifact (name/version): PreAct (development tool)

- Artifact Ref. (url): http://asinc.com/technology_overview.php

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

[X] 4. 4 - quite often

[ ] 5. 5 - almost always

Question 4g2 Additional Remarks -

"PreAct is a modern, commercial KB system development that has roots in

the DARPA Pilot's Associate System. It is used to develop systems

that include, reason about and operate on a "knowledge base""

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

Term: enterprise knowledge base

Gloss: a natural language/ textual description of

organizational "knowledge" about specified topics

Reference (citation/url): A number of large enterprises [e.g. British Petroelum, Lockheed Martin, etc.]

develop and maintain "knowledge bases" of this sort

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

[X] 2. 2 - rarely

[ ] 3. 3 - sometimes

[ ] 4. 4 - quite often

[ ] 5. 5 - almost always

Question 4h2 Additional Remarks -

"these usually seem to have some sort of a taxonomy - or topic map - as an index,

and are frequently believed [by users] to serve some of the purposes for which

ontologies are developed."

Question 5 Confirm Participation - where,

a 'convener' is a participant who provides substantive contribution to the Ontology Summit 2007

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 Ontology Summit 2007,

[ ] I agree that my name can be listed as a 'convener' of Ontology Summit 2007

[ ] I will consider endorsing the Ontology Summit 2007 communique. Please send it to me for

review when it is ready. I will confirm my endorsement after the review.

[ ] I confirm that you may list my organization as a 'co-sponsor' for

Ontology Summit 2007 (details below).

Question 5a Co-Sponsor confirmation:

Organization Name: Java Professionals, Inc.

Link (url) to Logo: (Not Answered)

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