RE: Definitions

Ontology: A set of concepts that define an information domain, their
properties and the relations between them, expressed in a visual - and
sometimes machine-processable - manner. Ontologies may also include the
rules that govern the relations between the concepts.

Metadata: Data that describes data. The property definitions of an
ontology can be thought of as metadata for the concepts that they
describe, as can be the relations between the concepts.

Schema: In XML terms, an XML schema is an electronic representation,
conforming to the W3C Schema standard, of the requirements of any XML
document that conforms to the schema, in terms of: structure,
validations, and metadata (the tags and attributes that appear in the
XML document). An XML document provides metadata for the information
contained within the document, and an XML schema provides the
requirements that the XML document must conform to. 

Additionally, an XML schema can represent an ontology, with the ontology
concepts represented as "content models" in which the root element of a
content model denotes the concept, and - by syntactical choice -
sub-elements and/or attributes (or combinations thereof) represent the
properties of the concept. The relations may be expressed in multiple
ways, 2 traditional ways being hierarchical representation (nested
content models) or identifiers used to associate concepts (content
models).

OWL vs. OWL-S: I leave the details to others here, but I will initially
say that OWL-S is an OWL-based ontology.

Hope that helps.
Joe

Joseph Chiusano
Booz Allen Hamilton
Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: public-sws-ig-request@w3.org 
> [mailto:public-sws-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of IC Dept.- 
> MIT-Maqbool Al Maimani
> Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2005 3:29 AM
> To: Daniel Elenius; protege-owl@SMI.Stanford.EDU; 
> public-sws-ig@w3.org; Owlseditor-discussion@projects.semwebcentral.org
> Subject: Definitions
> 
> 
> Dear all
> 
> I need to know the exact definition of the following words 
> and the difference between them:
> 
> 1. Ontology
> 2. Metadata
> 3. Schema
> 4.  OWL Vs OWL-S
> 
> Please assist - if there are any white papers on the above, 
> please send.
> 
> Regards,
> MAQBOOL
> 
> 
>

Received on Sunday, 27 March 2005 12:49:45 UTC