Towards a Methodology for Building Ontologies

Towards a Methodology for Building Ontologies (1995)

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by Mike Uschold , Martin King

Venue:	In Workshop on Basic Ontological Issues in Knowledge Sharing, held in conjunction with IJCAI-95
Citations:	196 - 4 self

BibTeX

@INPROCEEDINGS{Uschold95towardsa,
    author = {Mike Uschold and Martin King},
    title = {Towards a Methodology for Building Ontologies},
    booktitle = {In Workshop on Basic Ontological Issues in Knowledge Sharing, held in conjunction with IJCAI-95},
    year = {1995}
}

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Abstract

We outline some requirements for a comprehensive methodology for building ontologies, and review some important work that has been done in the area which could contribute to this goal. We describe our own experiences in constructing a significant ontology, emphasising the ontology capture phase. We first consider the very general issue of categorisation in modelling, and relate it to the process of ontology capture. We then describe the procedure that we used to identify the terms and produce definitions. We describe a successful way to handle ambiguous terms, which can be an enormous obstacle to reaching a shared understanding. Other important findings include: it may not be necessary to identify competency questions before building the ontology; the meta-ontology can be chosen after detailed text definitions are produced; defining terms which are 'cognitively basic' first can lead to less re-work. AIAI-TR-183 Page 1 of 13 1 Introduction Currently, a considerable body of experience...

Citations

2589	A translation approach to portable ontology specifications. Knowledge Acquisition - Gruber - 1993 (Show Context) Citation Context ...relatively informal, great lengths were taken to ensure precision, avoid ambiguity, and make connections between similar things explicit. This facilitated subsequent coding of the terms in Ontolingua =-=[3]-=-. 3.2 Initial Considerations Initially, the following main issues were addressed: ffl Decide what exactly it is that we intend to build (i.e. agree on a working definition of the term `ontology'); ffl...
1536	Toward principles for the design of ontologies used for knowledge sharing. Presented at the Padua workshop on Formal Ontology - Gruber - 1993 (Show Context) Citation Context ...logies. Some significant steps in this direction are described in: ffl IDEF5: [8] a language and method for describing ontologies; ffl a paper by Gruber discussing principles for designing ontologies =-=[2]-=-; ffl A paper by Skuce addressing the important issue of reaching agreement as a necessary step to sharing and integrating ontologies between multiple parties [10]; ffl A set of papers by Gomez-Perez ...
462	Fire and Dangerous Things - Lakoff - 1987 (Show Context) Citation Context ..., it is appropriate to consider how to apply general ideas on categorisation to the choice of categories in modelling. In this discussion, we draw on work in cognitive psychology and linguistics from =-=[9]-=- and considerable experience of modelling using the BSDM method [6] developed by IBM. 3.3.1 A Theory of Categorisation Lakoff [9] presents categorisation as fundamental to human cognition, a view that...
254	Ontologies and knowledge bases: towards and terminological clarification - Guarino, Giaretta - 1995 (Show Context) Citation Context ...ormulas intended to be always true according to a certain conceptualisation; ffl ontology: refers to either or both of the above; disambiguated by context (this and previous two terms are as given in =-=[5]-=-). AIAI-TR-183 Page 2 of 13 2 A Skeletal Methodology We envisage a comprehensive methodology for developing ontologies to include the following stages: ffl Indentify Purpose; ffl Building the Ontology...
253	Conceptual Structures: Information Processing in Mind and Machine - Sowa - 1984 (Show Context) Citation Context ...and when scenarios are being developed. Choosing a representation language --- Candidate ontology languages identified included: Ontolingua [3], KADS domain modelling language [13], Conceptual Graphs =-=[11]-=-, IDEF5 [8], and BSDM [6] mapping language for business entities and processes. The criteria used for choosing the most appropriate ontology language included: ffl perspicuity, ffl `conceptual distanc...
40	KnowledgeBas d Systems Analysis and Design - Tansley, Hayball - 1993 (Show Context) Citation Context ...on is also relevant to this stage, but ontology capture is especially concerned with the knowledge level, i.e. independent from concerns of a particular coding language. This is analogous to the KADS =-=[13]-=- recommendation to produce a domain model before coding the knowledge base. 2.2.2 Coding By coding, we mean explicit representation of the conceptualisation captured in the above stage in some formal ...
21	Conventions for Reaching Agreement on Shared Ontologies. 9th Knowledge Acquisition for Knowledge-Based Systems Workshop, February - Skuce - 1995 (Show Context) Citation Context ...g principles for designing ontologies [2]; ffl A paper by Skuce addressing the important issue of reaching agreement as a necessary step to sharing and integrating ontologies between multiple parties =-=[10]-=-; ffl A set of papers by Gomez-Perez on evaluation of knowledge sharing technology (e.g. [1]). The goal of this paper is to take a further step. We first propose a skeletal methodology for building on...
18	Evaluation and Assessement of the Knowledge Sharing Technology - Gómez-Pérez, Juristo, et al. - 1995 (Show Context) Citation Context ...e of reaching agreement as a necessary step to sharing and integrating ontologies between multiple parties [10]; ffl A set of papers by Gomez-Perez on evaluation of knowledge sharing technology (e.g. =-=[1]-=-). The goal of this paper is to take a further step. We first propose a skeletal methodology for building ontologies. We define a small number of stages that we believe will be required for any future...
7	Scalability of the Performance of Knowledge Represenation Systems. Towards Very Large Knowledge Bases. Ed. by N - Speel, Raalte, et al. (Show Context) Citation Context ...itting to some meta-ontology, choosing a representation language, and creating the code. With regards to choosing a language, possibly the most extensive work done in this area is the Plinius Project =-=[12, 15]-=-. They have experimented with a large variety of languages for representing their ontology in the materials science domain; these include Prolog, Conceptual Graphs, L-Lilog, Ontolingua, and several la...
6	An agent based approach to spacecraft mission operations - Jones, Wheadon, et al. - 1995 (Show Context) Citation Context ...sed as part of a knowledge base, e.g. by loading it in as a set of sentences which will be added to as appropriate; still others view their ontology as an application-specific inter-lingua (e.g. ATOS =-=[7]-=-). We are aware of no comprehensive surveys which attempt to identify and classify the range of all such purposes and end users, though [5] may constitute a step in that direction, at a fairly general...
5	Introduction to business system development method - IBM - 1990 (Show Context) Citation Context ...ng developed. Choosing a representation language --- Candidate ontology languages identified included: Ontolingua [3], KADS domain modelling language [13], Conceptual Graphs [11], IDEF5 [8], and BSDM =-=[6]-=- mapping language for business entities and processes. The criteria used for choosing the most appropriate ontology language included: ffl perspicuity, ffl `conceptual distance': extent to which the s...
2	The role of competency in enterprise engineering - Gruninger, Fox - 1994 (Show Context) Citation Context ...ensive surveys which attempt to identify and classify the range of all such purposes and end users, though [5] may constitute a step in that direction, at a fairly general level. Competency questions =-=[4]-=- can be seen as relating to the purpose of an ontology in very specific terms. Such a survey would be a useful starting point for ontology developers, assisting them to clarify their own purpose(s). I...
2	Knowledge based systems incorporated - KBSI - 1994 (Show Context) Citation Context ... experiences reported in the literature. However, we are aware of no proposals for a general methodology for building ontologies. Some significant steps in this direction are described in: ffl IDEF5: =-=[8]-=- a language and method for describing ontologies; ffl a paper by Gruber discussing principles for designing ontologies [2]; ffl A paper by Skuce addressing the important issue of reaching agreement as...
2	Objects, parts, and categories - unknown authors - 1984 (Show Context) Citation Context ...ter the lexicon; Knowledge Organisation: Most attributes of category members are stored at this level. Lakoff supports the last point by citing experimental evidence published by Tversky and Hemenway =-=[14]-=-. 3.3.2 Categorisation and Ontology Capture We considered it necessary to produce a document defining the terms of the Ontology in natural language. In other words to capture the conceptualisation. Th...
2	der Vet and N.J. Speel, P.H.and Mars. Ontologies for very large knowledge bases in materials science: a case study - van - 1995 (Show Context) Citation Context ...itting to some meta-ontology, choosing a representation language, and creating the code. With regards to choosing a language, possibly the most extensive work done in this area is the Plinius Project =-=[12, 15]-=-. They have experimented with a large variety of languages for representing their ontology in the materials science domain; these include Prolog, Conceptual Graphs, L-Lilog, Ontolingua, and several la...