RE: Ontology Working Group Proposal Draft

> "The current definition of an ontology as enunciated by the W3C needs to
> be
> examined and extended if required. Ontology as a model of use needs to be
> emphasized in contrast to ontology as a model of meaning."
> 
> In admittedly limited reading of the ontology literature, I have formed
> the
> impression that "ontology as a model of meaning" is what OWL is about,
> while "ontology as a model of use" often seems to require tools that are
> built on top of OWL.

[VK] We clearly recognize the fact that the current discussions around ontology
have adopted the "model of meaning". However, in  order for these ontological
artifacts to be useful to practitioners, we have to adopt the
"model of use" perspective as well.

In fact that model of use perspective is what has lead to development of
vocabularies, database schemas, terminologies, etc. We have to "assimilate and
extend"

It may be noted that the two perspectives are likely to overlap to a large
extent. Now whether we need to extend the current RDF, OWL, SWRL standards to
accommodate this perspective or come up with tools, techniques and best
practices based on the current standards is for the group as a whole to explore.

> To try to ground this a bit in something that a healthcare practitioner or
> a clinical researcher
> might in future find useful, there are some pointers below to some
> examples
> that one can run using a browser.

[VK] Thanks for the examples. Will take a look and get back to you.

Cheers,

---Vipul

Received on Sunday, 5 February 2006 17:59:23 UTC