An overview of the differences between an ontology and a taxonomy, the Ontology Web Language (OWL), and the appropriate times to use an ontology. Presented by Dr. Jay Ven Eman at the 2012 Data Harmony User Group meeting on February 9, 2012 at the Access Innovations, Inc. offices.

1. Ontology and
Other Semantic Options
February 9, 2012
Access Innovations, Inc.
Leveraging Your Content Semantically
Jay Ven Eman, Ph.D., CEO
j_ven_eman@accessinn.com
www.accessinn.com
www.dataharmony.com
+1.505.998.0800
Albuquerque, NM
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Ontology
 From philosophy – the science of
describing
 Kinds of entities in the world
 How they are related
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

3. Taxonomy, Thesaurus, & Ontology
 Taxonomies and thesauri are not
ontologies
 They are entities or “conceptualizations”
 Ontology – science of describing kinds of
entities
 For thesauri and taxonomies
 “a specification of a conceptualization”
 (Source: Gruber, 1993)
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

4. Taxonomy, Thesaurus, & Ontology
 OWL output
 Provides semantic meaning to these kinds of
entities or conceptualizations
 Web resource
 Accessible to automated processes
 OWL?
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

5. Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Strigiformes
Families: Strigidae
Tytonidae
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

6. Spotted Owl
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2010.

7. © 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

8. © 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

9. OWL
 Web Ontology Language
 W3C Recommendation 10 February 2004
 http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/Rec-owl-guide-20040210/
 http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/Rec-owl-ref-20040210/
 http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/Rec-webont-req-20040210/
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

10. OWL
 “…is intended to provide a language
that can be used to describe
 the classes and
 relations between them
 that are inherent in Web documents
and applications.”
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

11. OWL
 Formalize a domain by defining
 Classes
 Properties of those classes
 Define individuals
 Assert properties about them
 Reason about these
 Classes and
 Individuals
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

12. OWL Ontology
 May include
 Classes
 Properties
 Instances
 Capture semantics
 Multiple, distributed, related ontology schema
 Normative OWL exchange syntax RDF/XML
 Resource Description Framework/Extensible Markup
Language
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

13. Topics, associations,
occurrences
doc-type
MLB article
Sports
use-for http://www.newindexer.com/mlb.htm/
member-of
descriptor-for
Professional baseball
author-of
related-to
member-of Professional athletes
Baseball
member-of
Amateur baseball Smith
member-of Little league http://www.swaa.org
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

14. Hierarchical View
Term
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

15. ANSI/NISO Z39.19-200x
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

16. Clearer disambiguation?
 OWL statement
<PreferredTerm rdf:ID="T3195">
<rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Mercury (Planets)</rdfs:label>
<BroaderTerm rdf:resource="#T3896"
newsindexer:alpha="Planets"/>
</PreferredTerm>
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

17. Clearer disambiguation?
Temperature
Planets
IsA
TypeOf
IsA BrandOf
Mercury
Roman god IsA Automobile
Metallic element
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

18. Clearer disambiguation?
 Thesaurus statement
 Mercury (planet)
 mercury (metal)
 Mercury (automobile)
 Mercury (mythical being)
 mercury (temperature)
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

19. Ontology - when
 Industry or domain specific initiative
 Leverage over players/participants
 Significant competitive advantage
 Compelling need to extend beyond
taxonomy to other taxonomies and other
content repositories and content types
 Otherwise wait
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

20. Ontology - when
 Industry or domain specific initiative
 Leverage over player/participants
 Competitive advantage
 Other specifications of other
conceptualizations
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
2010.

21. Ontology and
Other Semantic Options
February 9, 2012
Thank you! Questions?
Access Innovations, Inc.
Leveraging Your Content Semantically
Jay Ven Eman, Ph.D., CEO
j_ven_eman@accessinn.com
www.accessinn.com
www.dataharmony.com
+1.505.998.0800
Albuquerque, NM
© 2012. Access Innovations, Inc. All rights reserved.