IoT ontology landscape

On behalf of Martin Bauer and Laura Daniele, co-leaders for the AIOTI Semantic Interoperability Expert Group, we’re looking for help in compiling an ontology landscape for the IoT:

The Semantic Interoperability Expert Group supported by AIOTI WG03 is working on creating an IoT Ontology Landscape, similar to the IoT Standardization Landscape [1] maintained by AIOTI WG03. To that end, the group has drafted a template for collecting information about relevant ontologies, see [2].

We see that ontologies are perceived as a useful tool for interoperability by stakeholders, but we also get the feedback that it is difficult for industrial practitioners to understand them in practice. This hinders the further uptake of semantic technologies in general and the use of ontologies in particular. For example, to start with, a common question we get from non-experts is about which ontology to choose for their particular purpose. Which ontologies are relevant in a certain domain? Where to find them? How to choose the most suitable? Who is maintaining and taking care of their evolution? These questions motivated our work on the IoT Ontology Landscape, which has the scope to guide stakeholders in the very first step of using ontologies in practice.   

AIOTI is a place where stakeholders from many different IoT-related organizations and also standardization organizations come together. As such, it is a place for discussion and interaction between stakeholders. With the IoT Standardization Landscape AIOTI has already created a good overview in the area of IoT Standardization, which is widely used. The idea now is to create a similar landscape for IoT-related ontologies.

Thus, we ask you, as knowledgeable expert or as a group of experts, who is using or creating ontologies, to fill out the template at [2], so your ontology/ontologies can find its/their proper place in the IoT Ontology Landscape, making it visible to relevant stakeholders. Overall, this will help in the uptake, convergence and ultimately the success of semantic technologies.

[1] https://aioti.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/AIOTI-WG3-SDOs-Alliance-Landscape-IoT-LSP-standrad-framework-R2.9-Published.pdf

[2] https://www.w3.org/2020/ontology-landscape-template.docx

Many thanks,

Dave Raggett <dsr@w3.org> http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett
W3C Data Activity Lead & W3C champion for the Web of things