1. Semantic Community
  2. Other
  3. Federal Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice
  4. Work Group Status

Work Group Status

Last modified

NEED LINKS AND ATTACHMENTS - BIG JOB!

  1. Agile Financial Data Services
  2. Cross Domain Semantic Interoperability
    1. 2006 December 20
  3. Federal Sitemaps
    1. Background
      1. Footnote 1
      2. Footnote 3
      3. Footnote 4
      4. Footnote 5
      5. Footnote 8
    2. Past Events
  4. Health Information Semantic Services
    1. Background
      1. 2006 June 28-29 Testimony
      2. Chronology
      3. Conference Calls
        1. 2005 December 20 Meeting
          1. Mission Statement
    2. Health Level Seven
    3. Lessons Learned
    4. Medical Informatics 20/20
    5. Semantic Interoperability
  5. Ontology and Taxonomy Coordination
    1. 2005 October 5 Kickoff Meeting
    2. Charter
    3. Controlled Defining Vocabularies
    4. COSMO Common Semantic Model
      1. Controlled Vocabulary
      2. COSMO Context
      3. SNrealignment
      4. Suplemental Vocabularly
      5. Top Level
        1. Dolce Definitions
        2. OpenCyc Definitions
      6. Top Level 2
    5. Glossary
    6. Original Members
    7. Pointers
    8. Project Mission
  6. Semantic Social Computing

Agile Financial Data Services

Note: This has evolved to the work of Chris Ball for the SOA CoP Demo 4 and the work of Graham for the SOA CoP Demo 5.

  • March 09, 2006 - present, Federal XBRL Community of Practice.
  • At the September 19, 2006, Collaborative Expedition Workshop - Open Collaboration: Networking Financial Management Communities
    • Being developed carefully and thoughtfully as a public - private partnership.
    • Built on the success of the XBRL, DRM 2.0, Composite Application with Business Ontology, etc.
    • Piloted by Digital Harbor as part of the DRM 2.0 Implementation Through Iteration and Testing and reported at the February 8-9, 2006, 4th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference.
    • Based on further pilot planning with the FDIC, SICoP, and Digitial Harbor coming out of the February 1st XBRL Seminar.
    • Based on a recent series of presentations to the Wall Street financial community and discussions with Dick Burk, OMB Chief Architect.
    • Organized into a session track at the October 10-11, 2006, 5th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference
    • Invited presentations for the Regulators Track, December 5th at the December 4-6, 2006, 14th International XBRL Conference and the November 13, 2006, local chapter meeting of the Hawaii AGA (Advancing Government Accounting) chapter.
  • At the October 11, 2006, 5th Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference:
    • SICoP’s Agile Financial Data Services Community of Practice (AFDS CoP) Focuses on Bridging Across the XBRL, SSOA, and Semantic Web Communities to Bring the Semantic Web to Financial Data. Work to soon to appear in the VK Test Semantic Wiki.
    • See Agile Financial Data Services = XBRL + SSOA + Semantic Web
      • Abstract: The “father” of the eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) embraces the Semantic Web as the way to do Extreme Financial Reporting. This presenter agrees, but suggests Agile Financial Data Services = XBRL + SSOA* + Semantic Web (RDF/OWL, SWRL, and SPARQL). Financial data is one of the W3C’s Semantic Web Activity “flagship areas” (also life and health sciences and geospatial), so SICoP has been working with the XBRL CoP since early February 2006 on the AFDS CoP. This presentation includes introductions to XBRL, DRM 2.0, Semantic Wikis, Networking Financial Management Communities, SOA CoP Demo, and the formation of an AFDS Community of Practice. * Semantic Service Oriented Architecture.
  • Five Step Process for Working in the Semantic Wiki (in process-see December 6th below):
    • 1. Prepare a CoP Mission Statement
    • 2. Prepare a CoP Membership List
    • 3. Prepare a CoP Strategy
    • 4. Hold a Wiki Training Conference Call (with items 1-3 entered into the Wiki space)
    • 5. Get commitments to collaboratively publish and edit trusted reference knowledge sources in the Wiki space.
  • At the December 6, 2006, XBRL 14th International Conference & Exhibition: Regulators Track.
  • At the December 13, 2006, XMLCoP Meeting:
  • Next Steps: Meet with Don Geiger, Allyson Ugarte, Richard Campbell, etc. on Collaborative Pilots
  • February 7, 2007, Transforming Financial Information - Use of XBRL in Federal Financial Management, ACT/ IAC White Paper.
  • May 14, 2007, CFOs Guide to Emerging Technology: XBRL.
  • May 18 and 21, 2007, Agile Financial Data Services CoP and SOA CoP Meetings with the XBRL CoP (Treasury) and the CGI Federal to Discuss the SOA/XBRL Demo Use Case Concept and Next Steps. Also Relates to MOU with the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) - Ireland and the European Union. Also see Expressive Syndication on the Web using Semantic Web Technologies: Applications and Experiences in the Financial News Domain.
    • We a very productive session and talked about work with financial data in four areas as follows:
      • 1. PARS Reports - focus of both of our presentations at the December 2006 XBRL Conference.
      • 2. Speadsheets in Wikis (e.g. WikiCalc) and from Google
      • 3. FFTA/Distributed SOA (SoA CoP Demo Phase 4)
      • 4. Compliance (Sarbanes-Oxley), Fraud Detection, etc. - Pilots by VisualKnowledge Digital Harbor, etc.

Cross Domain Semantic Interoperability

Paper now released: Data Interoperability across the Enterprise - Why Current Technology Can't Achieve it.

Questions: Please contact Jim Schoening at james.schoening@us.army.mil or 732-532-6820 with questions or suggestions.

Mission:

  • To make the case that current technology (XML, metadata, RDF, OWL, stand-alone ontologies, etc.) cannot achieve data interoperability across the enterprise.
  • To organize and seek resources for multiple independent projects to mature and demonstrate the technologies to enable semantic interoperability amongst Domains, Communities of Interest (COI), or any independently developed systems.

Candidate Technical Solutions:

  • Ontology Mapping and Linking (Semantic Web approach).
  • Single upper ontology. Examples: SUMO, DOLCE, OpenCyc, BFO
  • Set of mapped upper ontologies: See UpperOntologySummit Joint Communiqué
  • Enabling Technologies (that need to be matured, demonstrated, and piloted)
  • How to deal with overlapping and proliferation of Communities of Interest and Domains
  • How to achieve interoperability amongst legacy systems.
  • Metrics for Semantic Interoperability -- So we know what we have and how much we're improving it
  • Existing state-of-the-art technologies need to demonstrated, with results fully and openly published.
  • Utilization of existing upper ontologies.
  • Establish a testbed or distributed testbed, open for all to monitor and interface with.
  • Map two or more upper ontologies and evaluate feasibility of achieving semantic interoperability
  • How to utilize partial Semantic Interoperability where perfect interoperability cannot practically be achieved.
  • ...more to be added...

Out of Scope:

  • 'Semantic Technologies' are being worked by others and are outside the specific scope of this working group. This group will focus on how systems from different domains or COIs can all interoperate, without domain-to-domain mappings (which is an n-squared problem).
  • The success of our mission clearly depends on these other technologies, but we will leave these topics to others, so we focus on our specific mission.

Past Deliverables:

Briefing to US Federal CIO Council, Architecture and Infrastructure Committee (AIC)(including John Gilligan, Air Force CIO and Kim Nelson, EPA CIO) 8 Dec 2004

Past Conference Call Notes:

  • Minutes: SICoP/CUOwg_ConferenceCall_2004_11_18
  • Minutes: Re-Kick-Off Conference Call Nov 13, 2006
    • Sorry, minutes were not taken at this conference call.
  • Minutes: Conference Call Dec 20, 2006

Related Links:

  • IEEE P1600.1 Standard Upper Ontology Working Group
  • IEEE SUO WG Preliminary Evaluation of upper ontologies
  • Upper Ontology Summit
  • Toward the Use of an Upper Ontology for U.S. Government and U.S. Military Domains: An Evaluation, September 2004, Salim K. Semy, Mary K. Pulvermacher, and Leo J. Obrst
  • DoD 8320.02-G Guidance for Implementing Net-Centric Data Sharing

Working Group Members:

  • James Schoening
  • Nancy Faget
  • Mike Hieb
  • Adam Pease
  • Patrick Cassidy
  • Terry D. Faber
  • AllanTerry
  • Peter Yim
  • Roy Roebuck
  • Gary Berg-Cross
  • Cory Casanave
  • Antoinette Arsic
  • Darrell Woelk
  • Brad Cox
  • Webb Roberts
  • Adrian Walker
  • John Flynn
  • Mala Mehrotra
  • Todd Schneider
  • Joe Rockmore
  • Chung Hee Hwang

2006 December 20

Minutes of 2nd CDSI WG teleconference, 11:30 AM - 12:30 AM

In Attendence: (Please respond with spelling and other corrections)

  • Webb Roberts
  • Dana Ulery
  • Brian Haugh
  • Todd Schneider
  • Paul Thompson
  • Brad Cox
  • Peter Yim
  • John Flynn
  • Cory Casanave
  • Darrell Woelk
  • Kofi Apenyo
  • Robert Barnhart
  • Frank Alvedrez
  • Mike Uschold
  • Jim Schoening

Regrets: Patrick Cassidy, Misty Nodine

Main topic of meeting was review of draft paper (dated Nov 13), some comments included:

  • Need better defintion of data interoperability
  • Paragraph on "Semantic Web community" needs to be more positive
  • Explain CDSI is not the end-all, other barriers also
  • Add use case(s) to better explain requirements
  • Is goal no-humans-in-loop or is some amount acceptable?
  • OWL is not Level-9(mature) The language is, but tools and implementations are not.

Plans: Email and verbal comments are of value and appreciated, but best way to help paper is to submit specific proposed changes to distribution list. Comments will be integrated into paper and released in a couple weeks. Will continue with rounds of comments and versions until all comments are resolved. Paper will then be submitted to SICoP for further comments.

Next Teleconference: Will be scheduled when needed.

Jim Schoening, Chair

Federal Sitemaps

Background

Past Events

Introduction:

  • The Sitemap protocol is an open, XML-based standard for managing search engine crawling. The protocol provides website owners a means of communicating to search engines the location, priority, change frequency, and last modification date of all pages on a website or web-accessible database, which can ensure complete and efficient crawling of the site's contents.
  • The Sitemap protocol was introduced by Google in June 2005 under a Creative Commons License and was adopted in November 2006 as an industry standard by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.
  • FederalSitemaps is an initiative to help federal agencies make their websites more accessible to search engine users through sitemapping.
  • In support of website owners seeking to implement the Sitemap protocol, Google offers Webmaster Tools, a suite of resources and tools for analyzing and managing a website's performance. Yahoo Search offers a similar resource, Yahoo! Site Explorer.
  • New feature of the protocol simplifies the process for an agency that is does not take the step of programmatically submitting sitemaps to Google and others who support direct submission.

Contacts for More Information:

  • Ed Coia & Kirk Keller, Co-Chairs, xmlCoP
  • BrandNiemann, SICoP, Co-Chair (niemann.brand@epa.gov)
  • John Lewis (JL) Needham, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google, Inc. (jlneedham@google.com)
  • Others to be added

Background

 

The XML Community of Practice and the Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) encourage adoption and implementation of the Sitemap protocol by federal agencies because it:

  • Supports the E-Government Act of 2002 (Pub. L. No. 107-347) (Footnote 1) requirements to:
    • Organize and categorize information intended for public access and ensure it is searchable across agencies. (Footnote 3) The procedures to cost-effectively fulfill this requirement are outlined in two categories below. Increasingly sophisticated Internet search functions (including their crawl and index mechanisms) greatly assist agencies in this area.
      • When disseminating information to the public-at-large, publish your information directly to the Internet. This procedure exposes information to freely available and other search functions and adequately organizes and categorizes your information.
      • When interchanging data among specific identifiable groups or disseminating significant information dissemination products, (Footnote 4) advance preparation, such as using formal information models, may be necessary to ensure effective interchange or dissemination. (Footnote 5) This procedure is needed when freely available and other search functions do not adequately organize and categorize your information.
  • Supports the Federal Enterprise Architecture's Data Reference Model 2.0 requirements to:
    • Identify how information and data are created, maintained, accessed, and used;
    • Define agency data and describe relationships between mission and program performance and information resources to improve the efficiency of mission performance; and
    • Define data and describe relationships among data elements used in the agency’s information systems and related information systems of other agencies, State and local governments and the private sector.(Footnote 8)
  • Supports the SICoP DRM 2.0 Implementation - Knowledge Reference Model requirements for the use of increasing metadata to provide increasingly powerful search results (see page 6).
    • Extensions will include gleaning RDF from XML (GRDL) as at relates to the Google Sitemaps, Semantic Wikis and X-Forms Use Cases:
      • See example of GRDDL, RDFa, SPARQL, and XSLT applied to a digital library (image).
  • Supports the new CIOC Strategic Plan FY 2007-2009. See pages 10-11 re Goal 2: Information securely, rapidly, and reliably delivered to our stakeholders. Provide updates to the FEA Data Reference Model (DRM) and establish DRM implementation strategies, best practices, and success stories. The purpose of these activities is to contribute to the usability of the DRM by maintaining an effective process for modifying the DRM and sharing strategies for success.
  • Supports the new 2006 E-Gov report highlights government's role in information dissemination. In its fourth annual report to Congress on implementation of the E-Government Act of 2002, OMB notes that Federal agencies are improving the dissemination of and access to government information for the public. OMB procedures for organizing and categorizing government information and making it searchable across agencies.
    • Excerpts: Page 6. USA.gov also sponsors an interagency "web content" working group. The working group regularly conducts training for Federal employees, including tips for agencies for making agency websites more effective and relevant to popular search engines (e.g., Google, MSN, Yahoo).
    • Excerpts: Page 8. There are many dissemination channels available for agencies including popular commercial search engines (e.g., MSN, Google, andYahoo search engine services), USA.gov, and many others. 18 (Footnote 18. To learn more about organizations complementing Federal information dissemination, see: OMB’s April 15, 2005 report, “Organizations Complementing Federal Agency Information Dissemination Programs.”
  • Also coming will be work with Google Spreadsheets by the AFDS CoP and Google Earth by the SOCoP.
  • The XML Community of Practice and the Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) plan to encourage adoption and implementation of the Sitemap protocol by federal agencies by: Pilots, White Papers, and Conferences.
  • Representative federal agencies, interagency programs, and related organizations that have implemented the Sitemap protocol to open a previously uncrawlable database or other website element to search engine crawling:

Footnote 1

Section 207(d) of the E-Government Act requires OMB to issue policies – (A) requiring that agencies use standards, which are open to the maximum extent feasible, to enable the organization and categorization of Government information: (i) in a way that is searchable electronically, including by searchable identifiers; (ii) in ways that are interoperable across agencies; and (iii) that are, as appropriate, consistent with the provisions under 3602(f)(8) of title 44, United States Code; (B) defining categories of Government information which shall be required to be classified under the standards; and (C) determining priorities and schedules for the initial implementation of the standards by agencies.

Footnote 3

In describing procedures to provide public access to government information, this policy assumes your agency has fulfilled existing requirements, including all security and privacy responsibilities required by law and policy.

Footnote 4

Specific identifiable groups, also known as user groups and “communities of interest,” can include any combination of Federal agencies, State, local, and tribal governments, industry, scientific community, academia, and specific interested members of the general public. Examples of significant information dissemination products are described in OMB Circular A-130 as those: a) required by law; b) involving expenditure of substantial funds; c) by reason of the nature of the information, are matters of continuing public interest, e.g., a key economic indicator; and d) by reason of the time value of the information, command public interest, e.g., monthly crop reports on the day of their release.

Footnote 5

A "formal information model" unambiguously describes information or data for the purposes of enabling precise exchange between systems. Formal information models typically include definitions of the "entities" (concepts and facts) defined in or managed by the system, as well as relationships or mappings between those entities and the operations/business rules applicable to those entities. Examples of formal information models include, but are not limited to: taxonomies, ontologies, data models (conceptual, logical, and physical), thesauri and other controlled vocabularies, UML class models, entity-relationship models, topic maps, exchange packages, XML schemas and DTDs, data dictionaries, and metadata element sets. Formal information models may be needed to efficiently categorize, disseminate, and share information stored in systems not easily indexed by readily available commercial search technology. These include: 1) structured data sources such as databases, datamarts, and data warehouses; and 2) multimedia collections containing sound, video, and other non-textual information. Some formal information models may be found in consensus or industry standards or widely accepted practices.

Footnote 8

OMB Circular A-130, “Management of Federal Information Resources,” section 8b2(b)(iv).

Past Events

  • December 11, 2007, E-Government 2.0: Improving Innovation, Collaboration, and Access.
    • Karen S. Evans, Administrator, Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget
    • John Lewis Needham, Manager, Public Sector Content Partnerships, Google, Inc.
    • Ari Schwartz, Deputy Director, Center for Democracy and Technology
    • Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
  • November 13, 2007, Senate helping make gov't more searchable.
  • October 25-26, 2007, W3C Workshop on RDF Access to Relational Databases.
  • June 18-19, 2007, Toward More Transparent Government: Workshop on eGovernment and the Web, United States National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, USA.
  • April 25, 2007, SICoP Special Conference 2: Building Knowledgebases for Cross-Domain Semantic Interoperability
  • April 4, 2007, Sitemaps at GovExec's Annual Excellence in Government Conference. Washington DC Convention Center.
  • March 20-22, 2007, FOSE 2007: Introductory presentation of the Sitemap protocol by Google in the FIRM Forum at FOSE.
    • Demonstration area of the Government Business Solutions Pavilion: The Sitemap protocol is an open, XML-based standard for managing search engine crawling. The protocol provides website owners a means of communicating to search engines the location, priority, change frequency, and last modification date of all pages on a website or web-accessible database, which can ensure complete and efficient crawling of the site's contents. The Sitemap protocol was introduced by Google in June 2005 under a Creative Commons License and was adopted in November 2006 as an industry standard by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. In support of website owners seeking to implement the Sitemap protocol, Google offers Webmaster Tools, a suite of resources and tools for analyzing and managing a website's performance. Yahoo Search offers a similar resource, Yahoo! Site Explorer. FederalSitemaps is an initiative to help federal agencies make their websites more accessible to search engine users through sitemapping. The exhibit will feature a brief slide show describing the agreed upon standard and resources and agency staff involved in implementing it to tell their individual experiences and answer your questions. Success Stories: Slides.
  • March 15, 2007, EPA Web Work Group Conference (March 13-15) Presentation on Opening EPA Databases Now Closed to Search Engine Crawlers.
  • February 15, 2007, Web Content Managers Forum: Conference call involving 100-200 Forum participants in which JL Needham representing Google and Brand Niemann representing Federal Sitemaps will introduce the Sitemap protocol and representatives of Library of Congress, Department of Energy's Office of Science and Technology Information (OSTI), and PlainLanguage.gov will discuss their experience implementing sitemaps to fully open their sites to search engine users.
  • February 6, 2007, SICoP Special Conference: Building DRM 3.0 and Web 3.0 for Managing Context Across Multiple Documents and Organizations
  • January 29, 2007, Federal Sitemaps: An XML-Based Standard for Searching the Invisible Web
    • One hour presentation to EPA web managers on how to implement the protocol to open EPA sites now closed to search engine crawlers. This is an opportunity to observe how we approach discussions with a major federal agency.
  • January 21-25, 2007, The National Academies Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting. Workshop 163, Sunday, January 21, 2007, 1:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Hilton Washington. Benchmarking for Data Stewardship in Asset Management. SICoP Invited Presentation and Demonstrations 1 and 2
  • January 17, 2007, XML CoP Meeting: About 15 minutes to introduce the protocol to ~25 XML experts and advocates across federal agencies and the effort we're undertaking to encourage its adoption. May discuss the white paper idea and the prospective conference on the protocol in coming months. Slides.
  • January 10, 2007, Presentation to DoJ.

Health Information Semantic Services

  • The Health Information Technology Community of Practice (HITOP) and its Health Information Technology Ontology Project (clearly why we have to shorten this name) started with a focus on the role of ontology (see Background) and then more recently some of its key participants have focused on semantic interoperability for both the public and software developers:
    • January, 10, 2008, Ontolog Forum Presentation and Panel Discussion Conference Call, entitled: "Semantic Interoperability in Health Informatics: Lessons Learned" with Panelists: Mr. Marc Wine (co-chair and co-author of Medical Informatics 20/20), Mr. Rex Brooks (co-chair), Dr. Michael Cummens & Professor Saul Rosenberg (see Lessons Learned).
  • Since the focus of SICoP is on Building Semantic Interoperability Solutions for Information Sharing and Integration (seeFebruary 5, 2008, conference), it seemed appropriate to evolve to Health Information Semantic Services (HISS) since that describes the broader context of our support for building the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).
  • The was brought into sharper focus at the recent HIT Definitions Project Public Forum, January 16, 2008, where Dr. Karen Bell, Director, Office of Health IT Adoption, Office of the National Coordinator, said there were two things they wished they had done sooner: vocabulary harmonization and security and privacy, which gave rise to the SICOP Co-chair, Brand Niemann, suggesting a new Enterprise Information Architecture and Data Management Strategy for the NHIN, that ties the previous work and recent lessons learned together as follows:
    • 1. As a government reviewer of the original RFI's for the NHIN, the predominant message in those 500+ RFI's was don't build the NHIN until you have solve the security and privacy problem.
    • 2. As a participant in one of those RFI's, our joint response and Health Ontology pilot and demonstrationstressed the importance of solving the vocabulary problem early on in buidling the NHIN as well. Several other RFI's made the same suggestion.
    • 3. Since then the NHIN has tried a number of initiatives and held a series of conferences and meetings to build agreement across a very diverse community of HIT practitioners (c.f. February 1, 2008, Taskforces on State's Role in Electronic Health Information Exchange and Privacy, Security and Health Care Practice Issues).
  • What is needed is a thoughtful use of vocabulary to clearly define the overarching concepts and their relationships to the compond terms used by the NHIN community as follows:
    • 1. What is meant by the NHIN?
      • a. Nationwide - national in scope, but semantically interoperable with the rest of the world.
      • b. Health - Google that term and first get WebMD: Better information. Better health.The leading source for trustworthy and timely health and medical news and information. Providing credible health information, supportive community, ... So public and private categories arise because of security and privacy of personal health information. Google Health Wikipedia and get "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".
      • c. Information - For the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) we have the Data Reference Model (DRM) and from Google we get Wikipedia which says the word "information" is often used without careful consideration of the various meanings it has acquired.
        • Please note that we have done pilots of DRM 2.0 for health information for the NHIN that will be mentioned later and that the concept of Electronic Health Records (EHR) falls under this overarching concept.
      • d. Network - From Wikipedia, refers to any interconnected group or system. More specifically, a network is any method of sharing information between two systems (human or mechanical).
        • Please note that now days most people think of a network as "web - accessible" information.Wikipedia says Web accessibility refers to the practice of making websites usable by people of all abilities and disabilities. This includes the The untethered web. Future of IT: Advances could give new meaning to the term ‘computing environment’.
    • 2. How do individuals and communities of practices contribute to building the NHIN?
      • Determine how you will handle your personal (private) health information.
        • Example: As a government employee, Kaiser Permanente is my provider and provides an excellent, secure, web-accessible system. This is where my Electronic Health Records are kept up-to-date, readily accessible, and secure. I can also save them periodically to a storage device if I am concerned about not having Internet access while traveling.
      • Determine what public sources of health information you will rely on that are web-accessible.
        • Please note that those without web access can still get the information through print, conversion of web content to phone delivery, etc.
      • Suggest additional health information service nodes are needed and determine who is best able to provide them.
        • This is where and why SICoP - HISS is suggesting health information semantic services on the Web that mediate/broker differences in vocabulary like NATO and other major organizations are using rather than trying to standardize everything about health standards and vocabulary.
          • See NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency, Semantic Interoperability Executive Summary, Version 1.4, August 2007. The Hague. 13 pp.
    • 3. What are some of the specific pilot projects that SICoP - HISS has done or is currently working on?
      • May 18-22, 2008, 2008 Semantic Technology Conference. Final Program to include HISS presentations.
      • February 5, 2008, SICoP Special Conference 4: Building Semantic Interoperability Solutions for Information Sharing and Integration.
      • November 14, 2007, Biosurveillance: A Canada-U.S. Perspective on Emergency Preparedness and Planning. ACT/IAC Healthcare Committee. Comments provided from Part 7: Environmental Health Data (HISS) andPart 8: Emergency Management and Sensors in A New Enterprise Information Architecture and Data Management Strategy for the U.S. Government.
      • May 20-24, 2007, 2007 Semantic Technology Conference.
        • An Application of Semantic Technology to the Management of Computerized Patient Medical Records, Christopher Pierce, Cleveland Clinic. Presentation.
        • A Semantic Web Approach to Integrative Biosurveillance, Narendra Kunapareddy, The Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Informatics Research, Univ. of Texas Health Science Center, Alan Wu, Oracle Incorporated. Presentation.
        • Natural Language Understanding of Clinical Text: A Semantic Web Approach, Parsa Mirhaji, The Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Informatics Research, Univ. of Texas Health Science Center.Presentation.
      • April 25, 2007, SICoP Special Conference 2: Building Knowledgebases for Cross-Domain Semantic Interoperability.
      • November 9, 2006, Semantic Interoperability for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. Slides.
      • October 10-11, 2006, Fifth Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference at MITRE.
      • June 8, 2006 - present, EPA Environment Health Data for DRM 2.0.
      • April 27, 2006, Convergence of Semantic Naming and Identification Technologies? Joint with the Open Group for EHR (The Open Group is doing a EHR pilot).
    • What are some resources for HIT?

Background

Welcome to the Health Information Technology Community of Practice (CoP) and its Health Information Technology Ontology Project (HITOP), a federal group that will:

  • Make recommendations for systematically improving healthcare while reducing healthcare costs, and
  • Help achieve semantic interoperability through the use of ontology software in high priority health IT projects that will both save money and improve the quality of care. HITOP's major goals are to:
    • Communicate collective knowledge supporting usage of ontology tools in health IT applications.
    • Coordinate meetings and workshops, to broadcast to a broader audience, plans to develop test projects for the use of ontology tools in health IT applications.
    • Develop a roadmap on the state-of-the-art use of ontology tools to achieve semantic interoperability for high priority health IT applications involving clinical decision support systems (DSS) and electronic health records (EHRs).
    • Make recommendations to the Federal Health Architecture and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on ontology software to be tested in high priority health IT projects.

Marc Wine, Chair

See Draft HITOP Mission Statement (December 5, 2005).

Chronology

Conference Calls

Testimony at the First Nationwide Health Information Network Forum, June 28-29, 2006

2006 June 28-29 Testimony

Testimony at the First Nationwide Health Information Network Forum, June 28-29, 2006

Guidance:

  • The 1st Nationwide Health Information Forum: Functional Requirements will be held on June 28-29, 2006. This goal of this forum is to gain input on the functional requirements necessary to achieve a foundation for interoperable, standards-based network for the secure exchange of health care information and the input will inform next steps of NHIN process, CCHIT, HITSP and other ONC activities. See draft agenda for the Forum.
  • Functional requirements are an expression of something a system must be able to do to support identified activites. This spreadsheet provides the initial set of 1139 functional requirements that have been submitted to the Office of the National Coordinator from the 4 NHIN consortia (Accenture, CSC, IBM, and Northrup Grumman). Requirements responded to general NHIN infrastructure needs, and in a more detailed way, to the Use Cases (see Harmonized Use Cases).
  • Requirements were submitted in a controlled format and with defined vocabulary (see NHIN Requirements Approach document provided as additonal background material).
  • In addition, with an initial review a few additional columns were added to this spreadsheet:
    • 1) Closely resembles – identifies other requirements that are related or possible duplicative.
    • 2) Associated Requirement 1-5 – these columns provide the text of the requirements that are cited in the “closely resembles” column (the ID number, entity, entity-property relation, and property.
    • 3) Initial Review Comments – in some cases, comments are provided on the requirements such as duplicate, policy related, feature, too broad, etc.
    • 4) Tentative Breakout Session No. (3 columns – Entity, Functional Categories, Use Cases).
  • There are two sheets provided in this file that contain requirements – the first contains 977 functional system requirements and the second contains 162 requirements that appear to be duplicates or policy related.
  • At the conclusion of the Forum, the requirements and the input that is received at the Forum will be handed off to a Working group of the National Committee of Vital and Health Statistics (NCVHS). NCVHS will work to refine the list and produce an initial set of requirements by September 2006. These requirements will detail common requirements among the different suggested approaches and help describe the architectural alternatives that will be worked though in follow-up activities.

Comments and NCVHS Testimony (Brand Niemann):

  • Networking very beneficial, but the technical content was weak.
  • The Functional Requirements were illegible and too detailed for the Forum participants to deal with. The System Qualities Breakout Session (2.5) Discussant suggested working at the Services Level. Question from NCVHS Panel Member: Is the FEA Performance Reference Model the same as Functional Requirements? Answer: No, see FEA URLs provided in email.
  • The Moderator of the Closing Plenary responded agreement to my suggestion to use the Functional Requirements for three important tasks:
    • Part of a larger Enterprise Architecture that complies with the Federal Enterprise Architecture.
    • Part of a Network Data Model that will interoperate with other networks.
    • Implementation in new technologies (e.g. IPV6, RFID, and Semantic Technologies).
  • Why use ANSI when their business is more standards? NIST has "standards for standards". Construct a matrix of HealthIT Standards versus NIST Standards Criteria (level of consensus, product availability, stability, and problems / limitations) and use that to judge standards maturity and guide multiple vendor-standards pilots.
  • Architect at the EHR document level as well as at the system level. See our EHR with Semantic Technology and Naming Pilot.
  • Ask the FHA what Service Components it has identified from its FEA work and consider reusing, repurposing, etc. for the NHIN to save money and development time. The same goes for the NGOs and contractors.
  • Consider dealing with Privacy / Confidentiallity of EHR that same way the Census Bureau does with Census data. Federal law sets a high fine and imprisonment for any Census Bureau employee who gives your personal data to anyone inside or outside the government.
  • Do the four vendor pilot actually work and can they be readily made to work interoperably with one another? This is to mantra for the piloting that SICoP follows - open collaboration with open standards in multiple vendor - multiple open standards pilots.
  • The Axiom from Systematics says: A comple system built fron scratch will never work, while a complex system built from a simple system that works will work.  

Chronology

  • November 9, 2006, Presentation to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT: Introduction, Summary, andSelected Pilots. OS ONC Conference.Room2\Switzer (HHS/OS). Dial in available: 866-904-1360 and Code: 6438727
  • August 15, 2006, Semantic interoperability for the DoD Computerized Medical Record System using various standard medical ontologies which are proprietary. Mike Cummens, MD, Consultant to Northrop Grumman. Slides.
  • July 26-27, 2006, Open Hearings on the NHIN by the National Committee on Health and Vital Statistics Broadcast on the Internet
  • July 21, 2006, FHA/NHIN Review and Suggested Pilot for August 8th HITOP Conference Call (11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.)
  • July 5, 2006, Response to Question from Testimony to NCHVS on June 29th
  • June 28-29, 2006, First Nationwide Health Information Network Forum Guidance and Testimony to the NCHVS.
  • June 15-16, 2006, HealthIT Conference Agenda and HealthIT Conference Presentations.
  • May 2, 2006, Proceedings of the "Convergence of Semantic Naming and Identification Technologies?" Joint Conference Available. Discussions of the "Semantic Technology Electronic Health Record" for the FHA/NHIN Pilot Begins within the SICoP/HITOP WG.
  • April 27-28, 2006, Convergence of Semantic Naming and Identification Technologies?, Co-Produced by the Open Group, Federal Metadata Managers Consortium (FMMC), and SICoP. Also see Professor Baclawski's Tutorial on the Semantic and Bayesian Web (April 28th, 2-5 p.m.)
  • April 18, 2006, Collaborative Expedition Workshop - Open Collaboration: Networking Health IT
  • March 2006, Health IT in Government - Transforming Health Care and Empowering Citizens
  • February 22, 2006, FHA Data Architecture Working Group: EPA Data Architecture for DRM 2.0 and Collaborative Wiki.
  • February 10, 2006, Fourth Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference,Health Information Technology Ontology Project (HITOP): Marc Wine, Lead, Presentation and Featured Presentation: Barry Smith, HL7 RIM: Lessons for Semantic Interoperability
  • February 10, 2006, Examining the Effective Use of HL7v3 Messaging “Where the Rubber Meets the Road”, Introductionfor an Open Dialogue on: Issues in Communicating the Real Meaning of Data and Information in Citizens’ Electronic Health Systems.
  • February 9, 2006, Fourth Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference, Semantic Indexing & Search Collaborator: 5 Key Take Away Points, Michael Belanger, Co-founder & President, SemanTxLife Sciences. See Boston Children's Hospital "smart search" and Semantic UMLS Ontology-based Professional Language Processing PubMed Search. Also see Technical Application Review: Early detection of developing disaster recovery problems, pandemic disease or terrorist threats.
  • February 9, 2006, Fourth Semantic Interoperability for E-Government Conference, Semantic Web, Ken Baclawski, Co-Author with T. Niu of Ontologies for Bioinformatics, MIT Press, October, 2005.
  • January 27, 2006, HITOP Presentation to the National Center for Ontological Research.
  • December 28, 2005, FHA Data Architecture Working Group: SICoP DRM 2.0 Pilot.
  • December 20, 2005, Conference Call Meeting.
  • December 9, 2005, SICoP DRM Pilot of Started in Support of the New FHA Data Architecture Working Group to Model (Ontology) the Health USA 2005 Documents for the Dynamic Knowledge Repository.
  • December 8, 2005, Government HealthIT Conference. Strategies for Increased Interoperability Standards Adoption.Slides.
  • November 18, 2005, Serious Problems with HL7 V3, Barry Smith, et al.
  • October 5, 2005, Federal Health IT Ontology Project (HITOP) Group: The Vision Toward Testing Ontology Tools in High Priority Health IT Applications. Slides.
  • August 2005, STATES' RIGHTS: Public-private collaborations statewide could further boost healthcare into the future, inHealthCare Informatics Online, by Marc Wine and Peter Groen.
  • April 5, 2005, Building an Ontology of the National Health Information Network (NHIN): Status Report.
  • February 14, 2005, Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SCOPE) - DRM Semantic Technology Profile Pilotfor the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) and National Health Information Network (NHIN). Participation in NHIN RFI Review Begins (DKR).
  • January 18, 2005, Ontology Forum Submits RFI for the National Health Information Network with SICoP Participation.
  • August 12, 2004, Suggestions to "Semantify" the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) and Its Interoperability Provided to the FHA Interoperability WG by the SICoP/Ontolog Forum (e.g. SNOWMED in OWL and UML to OWL, etc.). The FHA is One of the Five OMB Lines of Business (LoB)! 

Conference Calls

2005 December 20 Meeting
  • Time: Noon-1:30pm EST
  • Dial-in: 888-495-9739 Pass code: 50678
  • Agenda:
    • 1. Introductions and Announcements
    • 2. Comments on Meeting Notes of September 23, 2005
    • 3. Update on Existing, Funded Ontology Projects – Mike Fitzmaurice
    • 4. Discussion of Rough Draft HITOP Mission Statement – Brand Niemann
    • 5. Report on NIST-ONCHIT Coordination and NIST Focus on Healthcare Informatics– Bettijoyce Lide, Steven Fenves
    • 6. “HL7 Issues,” Guest SME, National Center for Ontology Research – Barry Smith
    • 7. Roadmap for Recommended Testing of Ontology Software and Tools in High Priority HIT Projects – Open Discussion
    • 8. Meeting Summary
    • 9. Next Meeting
  • Meeting Materials:
    • HITOP Mission Statement, Rough Draft 12/06/05
    • HITOP MissionStatement
    • HITOP Draft Meeting Agenda 12/20/05
    • NIST, "Healthcare Strategic Focus Area: Clinical Informatics" 9/05
    • HITOP Meeting Notes 9/23/05
    • HITOP Slides 10/5/05
    • "HL7 Issues", NCOR, 11/05
    • Facilitator: Marc Wine
Mission Statement

Rough Draft, December 6, 2005

Mission Statement for the Health Information Technology Ontology Project Work Group

The Health Information Technology Ontology Project (HITOP) Work Group is a federal group that (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005) will make recommendations for systematically improving healthcare while reducing healthcare (SusanTurnbull, 12-19-05) cost. Achievement of (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005) semantic interoperability through the use of ontology software in high priority health IT projects will both save money and improve the quality of care (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005).

From the local level, to the Regional Health Information Organization level, to the level of states and provinces to the national and international levels, the importance of developing and/or adopting healthcare standards for electronic digital healthcare informatiion systems cannot be overestimated (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005).

While the value of reducing the human costs of medical errors would be sufficient reason in itself to pursue national if not global standards for all information systems related to healthcare, the demographic challenge of aging baby boomers demands that means for reducing the enormous costs involved in public and private healthcare be found, developed, instituted and maintained as soon as we can possibly accomplish this task.

The challenge is (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005))to provide interoperability between disparate standards, languages and practices as well as disparate database and operating system platforms. Adoption of universal standards for terminologies, descriptions of illnesses, and the vast array of pharmaceuticals, medical supplies and equipment is improbable (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005). Therefore, the ability to systematically map existing and developing standards to each other for the purposes of providing for practical interoperability in a necessarily heterogeneous information environment is of paramount importance.

Therefore, the purpose of HITOP (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005) is to provide for semantic interoperability in practical terms by employing Semantic Web technologies of the W3C such as the Web Ontology Language and the Resource Description Framework; and by developing mappings through such means as a Common Upper Ontology; and by validating and adopting standard mappings of the various domain ontologies and taxonomies of the healthcare informatics field (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005).

Additionally, there is a need to provide feedback to the standards organizations which are working on the succeeding versions of various standards such as XML Schema, OWL and RDF to provide for greater flexibility and complexity than is currently possible, therby covering (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005) the ever-increasing domains of knowledge with which the field of healthcare informatics is experiencing. To this end, it is necessary to understand that the single most effective means for organizing this body of information is going to be through registries of standards; of standards organizations; of the organizations which use or can use these various standards; and of accepted mappings between standards. These Registry Information Models (RIMs) will necessarily be the means through which this goal of practical semantic interoperability can be attained.

This HITOP mission is to:

  • assure machine computable semantic interoperability
  • consolidate healthcare and life sciences data across multiple enterprises
  • provide an ideal environment for application development across the health industries
  • leverage the IT investments of healthcare providers, researchers, and governments
  • offer a unique service for citizens/patients through common Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
  • implementing a RIM Based Architecture/ Infrastructure. (Frank Hartel, 12-19-2005)

Major HITOP goals:

  • Communicate collective knowledge supporting usage of ontology tools in health IT applications.
  • Coordinate a meeting, to broadcast to a broader audience, plans to develop test projects for the use of ontology tools in health IT applications.
  • Develop a roadmap on the state-of-the-art use of ontology tools to achieve semantic interoperability for high priority health IT applications involving clinical decision support systems (DSS) and electronic health records (EHRs).
  • Make recommendations to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on ontology software to be tested in high priority health IT projects.

Health Level Seven

Health Level Seven (HL7) is an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard messaging protocol that specifies the set of transactions and encoding rules for electronic data exchange between health care computer systems. HL7 provides an open, standards-based framework that computer systems can use to exchange health care data with each other. The HL7standards development group is directly focused on health care informatics standards and cooperates closely with developers of other standards.

The VistA HL7 package enables M-based VistA applications running on core facility computer systems to exchange health care information with other computer systems. It provides messaging services and a single toolset for M-based VistA applications to create, send, receive, and process HL7 messages.

Lessons Learned

January 10, 2008, Semantic Interoperability in Health Informatics: Lessons Learned - Panel Discussion.

Conference Call: Ontolog Forum

Slides:

Audio Recording: MP3

The issues surrounding the evolution of practical Semantic Interoperability in Health Informatics are complex, and complicated by the lack of Information Technology uptake in the Healthcare community at large. In Medical Informatics:20/20 the authors, incuding moderator Marc Wine have examined the clinical issues in depth. Marc will give us a summary in his introduction to this session.

Michael Cummens, MD worked on the Northrop Grumman NHIN on the Terminology Service Bureau and other semantic interoperability projects and will discuss lessons learned from this work. Mike will also discuss the specific problems of adequately translating Electronic Health Records produced by one system such as the VA or the Military Health Medcin system to another system such as Epic. Because this factor is amplified by the interoperability issues of moving data between diverse platforms and operating systems, not only must there by translation between specific applications that may or may not share common standards, but also between combinations of platforms and operating systems, exponentially enlarging the problem before considering the problems of scalability in performance across such boundaries.

Saul Rosenberg has developed a new concept for the diagnosis of brain injury and PTSD, and discovered along the way that he needed a new vocabulary standard. Having the opportunity to start fresh unlike a great deal of medical terminology and nomenclature developed before the widespread distribution of Information Technology, he nevertheless faces interoperability challenges. He will discuss what he has learned in exploring what will be needed to move his concept forward.

Rex Brooks approaches the field of Health Informatics from the IT side of these issues and is building a SOA Registry-Repository for the domain of Health Informatics that includes Service Providers, Services, Standards and Standards Development Organizations as well as guidance on how to implement Standards effectively and understand how to assess and select ontologies by groups such as the National Center for Ontological Research.

Medical Informatics 20/20

Dear Friends;

It is with pleasure to share with you the announcement of my new book -- " Medical Informatics 20/20 : Quality and Electronic Health Records through Collaboration, Open Solutions, and Innovation," published by Jones and Bartlett, January 4, 2007.

Along with my coauthors, in Medical Infromatics 20/20 , we have written the story of how sharing health information technology will guide the healthcare industry and all Americans toward transformation for the 21st Century.

Dr. Kevin Fickenscher, Executive Vice President of Healthcare Transformation, Perot Systems wrote:

“Health care is at a crossroads. Medical Informatics 20/20 identifies both the problems faced in realizing healthcare transformation and, prescribes vital solutions that can guide us in creating better systems to save lives, improve quality and reduce costs. The three strategies profiled in the book—Collaboration, Open Solutions and Innovation—are prescriptions for correcting what ails medical care.”

U.S. Congressman Adam Smith of Washington wrote:

" Medical Informatics 20/20 should be required reading for industry leaders, policy makers, and others working to lower costs and update our health system."

Please take a moment to consider Medical Informatics 20/20 at the publishers site or at Amazon.com.
  
Best regards, Marc

Marc Wine, M.H.A.

email: MedInfo2020@aol.com

Semantic Interoperability

Suggested Definition: The ability of two or more autonomous, heterogeneous, distributed digital entities (e.g. systems, applications, procedures, directories, inventories or data sets) to communicate and cooperate among themselves despite differences in language, context, format or content.  These entities should be able to interact with one another in meaningful ways without special effort by the user - the data producer or consumer - be it human or machine.

  • X implements service “R” as a client
  • Y implements service “R” as a server
  • X need not have understanding of Y, or vice versa
  • X and Y are able to interact effectively at run-time to achieve shared goals

Based Upon: “Semantic Interoperability of Distributed Geo-Services,” Rob Lemmens, PhD Thesis, Delft University of Technology, Published by ITC, 2006. Abstract and Full Thesis.

Getting on the Same Page: HealthCare Semantic Interoperability, Dr. Rosemary Ferdinand, Deloitte, at Transformation and Innovation 2006, May 23, 2006:

Healthcare delivery is undergoing tremendous transformation driven by significant social, political and technical drivers. Healthcare organizations and system vendors are learning from early experiences and capitalizing on successes with electronic medical records. Efforts are moving beyond business and system transformation associated with individual organizations to innovations such regional entities such as Regional Health Information Organizations (RHIO’s). A critical success factor to this effort is the ability for healthcare information to be translated between originating sources and resolved to a common content structure. This session explores the current drivers and trends with respect to business and technology innovations related to semantic interoperability in healthcare. Major healthcare nomenclatures will be described, e.g. SNOMED, ICD, DSM, CPT and others. Semantic network architecture for interoperability will be reviewed. Semantic interoperability addresses the challenges described above. Healthcare information is recorded in several “languages." Structured vocabularies are used to document diagnosis and treatments. A variety of numeric systems record quantitative data such as lab results.

With a PhD and Master’s degrees in HealthCare informatics with a specialization in healthcare nomenclatures and semantic networks, Dr. Ferdinand has over twenty years experience in clinical process and health care information systems transformation serving provider, health plan and public sector clients. Her areas of expertise include project management of clinical, EDI, and informatics systems applications. She has managed systems projects spanning the full system life cycle including strategic systems planning, requirements definition, package selection, custom system design, coding/testing, and implementation. She also has expertise in clinical data mining, advanced rules and analytics.

Ontology and Taxonomy Coordination

Purpose: ONTACWG is a working group within the Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) to provide a mechanism for voluntary coordination of all activities within the Federal Government and among other interested parties, for (1) developing Knowledge Classification and Representation systems such as ontologies, taxonomies, thesauri, and graphical knowledge representations; (2) relating the meanings of the terms in those classifications to each other and to a common higher-level ontology; and (3) sharing information on the effective use and evaluation of such Knowledge Classification Systems. SeeCharter, Project Mission, and Original Members.

Most Critical Task(s) At Hand:

  • Deployment of the Defining Vocabularies
    • Information on the beginnings of efforts to develop and test controlled Defining Vocabularies to make community vocabularies more readily interpretable will be found on the /DefiningVocabulary page.
  • Continued development of the COSMO (Common Semantic Model)

Kick-off meeting, October 5, 2005 and Inaugural meeting of NCOR, October 27, 2005.

Glossary

Controlled Defining Vocabularies

Pointers and Resources

ONTAC WG: General Discussion list

Ontology-discussion list of the IEEE-SUO project: General discussion about ontologies and basic issues of knowledge representation. To subscribe send email to: ontology@ieee.org or go to Web site.

2005 October 5 Kickoff Meeting

What: First SICoP Ontology and Taxonomy Coordinating WG Meeting

When: October 5, 2005, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. EDT

Where: MITRE, McLean, Virginia, Room 1F605 at the Rappahannock Building, 1550 Westbranch Drive in McLean, VA.

Purposes:

  • To develop the workplan for the ONTAC WG;
  • To provide input to the DRM Implementation Through Iteration and Testing Team Pilot Project Plan; and
  • To provide input to the National Center for Ontological Research (NCOR) Inaugural Event, October 27-28, 2005.

Agenda:

Discussion:

  • Pat - How formal?
  • Peter - suggest using the OASIS TC Process as a guideline (or the basis to develop our own) - See Jon Bosak's talk to Ontolog & CEW on Sep. 23, 2005 - OASIS TC Process (open process, developing open standards) - see: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/process.php
  • Chair - rotate, call meetings, etc. - Pat formally elected/ratified!
  • Roy - Need clear set goals
  • Bruce - For DRM need formality
  • Joyce - Objectives?
  • Brand - Background Context - SICoP Charter (Pilots, White Papers, and Education), Immediate Input to the DRM and NCOR, and Long-Term
  • UMD - Coordinating Ontologies for the federal Government is a full-time job
  • Roy - Volunteer 10 hours a week
  • Brand - Chartered and Lead (Pat) - CoP - Could recommend more formal to the CIO Committees
  • Gary Berg-Cross - Reduce duplication - make case to managers
  • Oliver - Identify assets and build a repository
  • Roy - Yes, and collect their terms for reuse.
  • Pat - Inventory of KC systems? Soergel, Roy, Oliver and ??
  • Chuck Turnista - Supports this - but not complete ontology yet
  • UMD - Inventory of Inventories but need tools beyond Wiki
  • Brand - David Koepsell, Ontologist Bowstreet, Inc. -Ultimately, if we rely on good underlying ontologies, creating new taxonomies becomes easier, and interaction among them becomes simpler. The dream, of course, is a unified ontology.
  • John Young - Vivisimo - Yes - see Wiki
  • Gary - FEA Models as the basis - use to merge with others
  • Brand - Similar to EC Semantic Interoperability Framework - see Wiki
  • Eric - Has something - DRM OWL - Tommorrow's DRM ITIT Meeting
  • Brand - SICoP Charter and Mission
  • Pat - Does it include an Upper Ontology (Brand - Yes - See two of four group under SICoP)
  • Eric - Politics of Upper Ontology Work - Brand mentioned lessons learned (multiple-level ontologies) that shaped HITOP (see Marc Wine)
  • Pat - How to organize into groups?
  • Susan and Peter - Wiki Assistance to post your comments and suggestions
  • Susan - Long-term view for business needs - strategic value
  • Peter - all members of this group should be a subscriber to the [ontac-forum] is mailing list; alll 'official' communications to be posted to the [ontac-forum] mailing list.
  • subscribe at: http://colab.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontac-forum
  • forum archives: http://colab.cim3.net/forum/ontac-forum/
  • Soergel - Reusable vocabulary
  • Pat - Frequency of Meetings (in person better, but requires funding) weekly call-in (10 or so - try it)
  • Carla - Full or two WG's - Roy (informal weekly - formal monthly) Agreed
  • Peter - details to CWE-Wiki Training session can be found at: CommunityLearning_CWE
  • Pat- Summary - Two WGs, Meetings, Study of Upper Ontology (Check with Jim Schoenig), etc.
  • Blog - Yes, but not for personal matters - this is a public Wiki that is monitored for appropriate use
  • Brand - Pilots - Guidelines, Examples, etc. See SICoP Wiki Pages and Links
  • Rick - Policy Aware Web (W3C - Hendler) http://www.policyawareweb.org
  • Roy - CC Available
  • Brand - See SiberLogic for New Paridigm
  • Next meeting - (probably) first Wednesday in Nov. 2005. afternoon? (Pat will arrange and announce)

Charter

May 23, 2005, Update Charter for ONTACWG – A New Working Group of the SICoP

This note creates a new working group within the Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP) to provide a mechanism for voluntary coordination of all activities within the Federal Government and among other interested parties, in developing Knowledge Classification and Representation systems such as ontologies, taxonomies, thesauri, and graphical knowledge representations. The name for this working group will be “The Ontology and Taxonomy Coordinating WG”, abbreviated as “ONTAC”. The lead for this WG will be PatCassidy, Ontologist, MITRE (pcassidy@mitre.org)

The goals of this working group will be:

• To collaborate in the actual construction of useful knowledge representation systems.

• To keep each of its members aware of efforts similar to their own, so as to reduce duplicative effort and rapidly disseminate theoretical and practical knowledge about the creation and use of knowledge classification and representation systems, especially as related to governmental activities.

• To promote interoperability by identifying common concepts among knowledge classifications developed by different groups, and by creating mappings:

o from individual domain classifications to the common upper or mid-level ontologies;

o from individual domain classifications to other domain classifications.

• To identify, create, and share programs that use knowledge classification systems, especially those that may help to evaluate and compare the functionality of classifications.

In support of these activities, the group will:

• Maintain, as a community, a common upper ontology and a set of contexts and mid-level ontologies which will provide a mechanism for resolution of questions as to which concepts in which classifications are: identical to; different from but consistent with; or logically incompatible with, those of other classifications;

• Maintain an e-mail listserver to enable efficient discussion of topics relevant to the goals (see below);

• Maintain a website that will contain resources and pointers to resources to assist the members to achieve their individual goals more efficiently. Such resources may include, in addition to the common ontologies developed by the community:

o A list of the publicly available knowledge classification systems maintained by the members, and pointers to them;

o A list of other public knowledge classification systems that may contain useful elements;

o A list of members knowledgeable about specific topics or programs, and available to answer queries about such topics;

o A registry of other data sources and services that can assist in creating knowledge classification systems.

• Conduct periodic discussions via teleconferencing or in person to advance the individual and common goals of the members;

• Develop procedures for reaching decisions about any issue that may concern the group.

The focus of this working group will be on the actual construction and use of knowledge classification systems. Discussion of basic principles and theoretical issues will be an important aspect of the collaborative effort, but should in general serve to address specific questions about particular elements in one of the knowledge classifications maintained by the group or its members.

Note: This proposal was distributed to the SICoP and received the formal endorsement of several members of the CoP and no objections.

Brand Niemann, Chair, SICoP

Controlled Defining Vocabularies

A new project (August 2006) of the ONTACWG is just beginning. The goal is to create and test a set of controlled vocabularies for use in defining the terms and concepts in knowledge classifications of any kind. A controlled defining vocabulary includes a Basic Defining Vocabulary, in which the terms are defined using only the words in the Basic Defining Vocabulary itself. Additional, larger defining vocabularies can be created from the Basic Defining Vocabulary, by defining their terms using only the terms in the Basic Defining Vocabulary. Such extended defining vocabularies can in turn be used to create more specialized community or domain vocabularies. In this cascading manner, an unlimited number of terms can be created whose definitions are recursively defined using only the words that are in Basic Defining Vocabulary. This project has two purposes:

(1) by defining specialized community terms using a limited defining vocabulary, the meanings of such terms will be more readily understood by those not already familiar with that community's knowledge. This notion has been employed by lexicographers, such as in the Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary English, to help learners of English rapidly understand the meanings of less common words. Terms defined by use of the basic defingin vocabulary (starting at 2000 words) can then in turn be used in definitions, thereby anchoring the definitions of more specialized terms by recursive definitions grounded in the basic defining vocabulary.

(2) If and when automated techniques become available to understand the meanings of the most basic English words, it should be possible to automatically convert new term definitions created using the controlled defining vocabularies into a logical specification that represents the emasning of the new term,and allows the newly defined concept to be used in programs with automated reasoning capability.

The Basic Controlled Vocabulary was derived initially from the defining vocabulary of the Longman's Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE), supplemented with some additional basic words. This defining vocabulary has a simple associated program (in Java, tested in Windows XP) which will allow the user to paste a definition a text window and check to see if there are any words in the definition not in the defining vocabulary. The program and vocabularies are available for download as a ZIP file.

Alignment With the COSMO

COSMO is the proposed Common Semantic Model, being developed by the COSMO Working Group (CosmoWG). It is envisioned as consisting of a lattice of ontologies which will serve as a set of basic logically-specified concepts (classes, relations, functions, instances) with which the meanings of all terms and concepts in domain ontologies can be specified. The use of a common set of defining concepts will permit accurate interoperability of knowledge-based systems using the logical relations of their ontologies as the basis for reasoning in the system. The COSMO is intended to provide representations of logically defined terms which reflect some level of consensus among the ONTACWG members as to their adequacy to support varied semantics-driven applications.

The ability to automatically convert definitions created using the defining vocabulary into logical form for inclusion in a logical knowledge base (COSMO or some consistent ontology) will require that the words (in their intended senses) in the basic defining vocabulary be associated with the proper logical definition in the COSMO. At present, the COSMO is not of a size sufficient to support the full existing basic defining vocabulary. Its development needs continuing effort.

When the COSMO has reached a size equivalent to the conceptual content of the controlled English defining vocabulary, there will be a possibility of creating a language-understanding program aligned with the COSMO ontology that can take term definitions in the basic English and create the logical specifications that specify the meaning of the term using the basic concepts represented in the COSMO.

The conversion of the linguistic concept definitions into the logical forms of the COSMO need not be accomplished by any specific natural-language interpretation technique, but only requires that the interpreting program take the COSMO as the common paradigm of knowledge representation into which knowledge must be converted in order to be sharable among those applications that wish to use the COSMO as the means to semantic interoperability.

COSMO Common Semantic Model

COSMO is the proposed Common Semantic Model, viewed as consisting of a lattice of ontologies which will serve as a set of basic logically-specified concepts (classes, relations, functions, instances) with which the meanings of all terms and concepts in domain ontologies can be specified.  The most important function of the COSMO is to serve as a Foundation Ontology that has a sufficient inverntory of fundamental concept representations so that it can support utilities to translate assertions of fundamentally different ontologies into the terminology and format of each other.  The use of a common set of defining concepts will permitaccurate interoperability of knowledge-based systems using the logical relations of their ontologies as the basis for reasoning in the system.   The COSMO can also be used as the starting ontology for creation of more specialized domain ontologies.

The exact structure of the COSMO is an issue that will be decided by the work of the COSMO working group (COSMO-WG) and its parent group, the Ontology and Taxonomy Coordinating Working Group (ONTACWG). The type and number of different logically incompatible ontological theories that may be needed to accommodate different viewpoints, and the ways they can be related to each other, will be decided by the efforts of these groups.  The current version of COSMO is represented in OWL and available athttp://micra.com/COSMO.  It is anticipated that, to serve as the means for translation of other ontologies, it will be necessary to have rules and functions represented in a First-Order language such as a Common Logic conformant language.   The COSMO is expected to be maintained as an OWL ontology, eventually with automatic translation into some FOL language.

Some initial discussions of work that would be appropriate for the COSMO-WG and other ONTACWG efforts were held among ONTACWG members present at the NCOR inaugural meeting on October 27th, 2005 in Buffalo. Recommendations at that time were summarized.   After the initial discussions, work on the COSMO has been continued mostly by Patrick Cassidy, though the COSMO is still open to contributions and suggestions from any source.  Anyone with an interest in this project is encouraged to contact Pat Cassidy (cassidy@micra.com/1-908-561-3416).

Most Critical Task(s) At Hand:

The current OWL version  of the COSMO, together with some discussion and data for the linguistic defining vocabulary, is available from http://micra.com/COSMO. This version contains types (classes) and relations added up to February 2009. There are about 5695 OWL classes, 616 Properties, and  1017 restrictions. Many of the classes are similar to those in the OWL version of the OpenCyc ontology, others are aloigned with SUMO, and many were created specifically for the COSMO ontology.

The COSMO will be ideally aligned with the controlled Defining Vocabularies that the ONTACWG community can develop. Information on the beginnings of efforts to develop and test controlled Defining Vocabularies to make community vocabularies more readily interpretable will be found on the Controlled Defining Vocabularies page. 

Controlled Vocabulary:

Ideally, a common Foundation Ontology will have an associated Natural Language interface that will allow users to query the ontology to determine what concepts are represented in it, and whether a specific concept (e.g. one needed for a domain ontology) is already in the foundation ontology, or if not, where such a concept could be linked to the foundation  Ontology.  The complexity of Natural Language (NL) interpretation can be much reduced by adopting a flexible controlled vocabulary, so that the NL intepreter does not have to interpret the full range of unrestricted English.  The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE) uses a controlled vocabulary of 2148 words to define all of the terms in the dictionary.  These are the words that are being taken as a starting point for creating the COSMO as a Foundation Ontology suitable for translating among other ontologies.  For convenience, it is anticipated that users of the COSMO will want to use other terms to concisely describe the meanings of the ontology elements they create.   The tactic adopted for the Controlled defining Vocabulary is to allow use of any words that are convenient, but to require that additional words not in the base Defining Vocabulary (Base-DV) are themselves defined uwing words in the Base-DV; or if words in the definition of some new term are not in the Base-DV, then defined those terms useing the Base-DV, and so on recursively, until all terms in any definitions are grounded in the more primitive terms that are in the Base-DV.   This provides a means to enable automated interpretation of the linguistic definitions, and automatic craetion of the logical specfication from the linguistic definitions, thereby easing the task of using the COSMO foundation ontology for creating directly linked domain ontologies.   A beginning of such a supplemented defining vocabulary has been created, and is discussed inhttp://micra.com/COSMO/DefiningVocabulary/.

If anyone has an interest in this project, please contact Pat Cassidy (cassidy@micra.com/ 1-908-561-3416).

The base Controlled Vocabulary has a simple associated program (Java, tested in Windows XP) which will allow the user to paste a definition a text window and check to see if there are any words in the definition not in the defining vocabulary. The program and vocabularies are available for download as a ZIP file at:

    http://www.micra.com/COSMO/DefiningV.../checkdefs.zip.

Context Representation:

A small independent discussion of the issue of context representation is being discussed in a separate Cosmo Context page.

Controlled Vocabulary

In preparation. A basic controlled vocabulary is being prepared to provide a resource so that communities can define their terms using a basic vocabulary that is comprehensible to all communities. A simple JAVA program will be provided to facilitate checking each proposed definition against the basic controlled vocabulary, or against a communities own controlled vocabulary.

When it appears that words not in the controlled vocabulary are required or merely convenient for creating definitions of terms, those words should be defined using the terms in the basic Controlled Vocabulary and added to the Supplemental Vocabulary. Words defined in the Supplemental vocabulary can then themselves be used in definitions, but the definitions will still be recursively defined with reference to the basic Controlled Vocabulary.

The base /ControlledVocabulary has a simple associated program (Java, tested in Windows XP) which will allow the user to paste a definition a text window and check to see if there are any words in the definition not in the defining vocabulary. The program and vocabularies are available for download as a ZIP file (Missing).

The current basic controlled vocabulary (baseCV.txt) and controlled vocabulary supplemented with additional commmon terms defined using the baseCV.txt, can be downloded individually from the Controlled Vocabulary Folder (See Below).

COSMO Context

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SNrealignment

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Suplemental Vocabularly

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Top Level

COSMO is the proposed Common Semantic Model, viewed as consisting of a lattice of ontologies which will serve as a set of basic logically-specified concepts (classes, relations, functions, instances) with which the meanings of all terms and concepts in domain ontoogies can be specified. The use of a common set of defining concepts will permit accurate interoperability of knowledge-based systems using the logical relations of their ontologies as the basis for reasoning in the system.

The exact structure of the COSMO is an issue that will be decided by the work of the COSMO working group (COSMO-WG) and its parent group, the Ontology and Taxonomy Coordinating Working Group (ONTACWG). The type and number of different logically incompatible ontological theories that may be needed to accommodate different viewpoints, and the ways they can be related to each other, will be decided by the efforts of these groups.

  • This top level is part of the effort to create the Common Semantic Model.
  • A parallel effort is underway to create a realignment of the UMLS Semantic Network.
  • A top-level ontology hierarchy consisting of classes from the OpenCyc and SUMO ontologies, with some classes from DOLCE and BFO, is presented here as an aid to discussion of the relationships of ontologies to each other and the possible logical incompatibilities among them.
  • The OpenCyc Ontology is more detailed in its higher levels, so that is used as the base namespace -- unqualified class names are derived from the OpenCyc Ontology. Classes added for this exercise that do not have exact equivalents in any of the ontologies are labeled 'COSMO'. The possible correspondences between ontologies are indicated by multiple class names on one line, each qualified by its origin, and separated from each other by a forward slash. Indentation indicates subclass, and duplicate entries (multiple parents) have an asterisk after the entry. The top "Entity" node is assumed and not included.
  • The correspondences indicated are those classes where it appears that the same instances are intended to be included in the classes that are identified with each other.
  • Where there is a significant difference in the placement (intended meaning) of classes in different ontologies, this is signified by a pound sign (#) after the class entry. NOTE the entries for 'Language'.
  • Changes in this proposed hierarchy after 2005-12-29 should be logged in the Change Log (Nothing Entered).

Merged Hierarchy - Top Levels Only:

NOTE that an OWL version of this same hierarchy is available on our resource folder (Missing).

The comments (English-language explanations) of the OpenCyc classes are being collected (not complete) in the page OpenCyc Definitions. Documentation for DOLCE concept are found in Dolce Definitions.

This is the original version.  To modify this taxonomy, please use the latest version 2, see Top Level 2

Individual
   ***spatio-temporal-particular(DOLCE) (no exact Cyc match)
  SpatialThing(Cyc)/Physical(SUMO)/SubstantialEntity(BFO)
    SpatialThing-Localized
      GeographicalRegion(Cyc – includes other planets)
        GeographicalArea(SUMO – Earth areas only: subclass of region)
          WaterArea
            BodyOfWater(Cyc)/BodyOfWater(SUMO – earth only)*
    SpaceRegion(Cyc)
       SpaceRegion(SUMO – for regions off the Earth – subclass of Object(!?))
    TwoOrHigherDimensionalThing(Cyc)
      PartiallyTangible(55 in Cyc)/Object(SUMO)/physical-endurant(DOLCE)
        Substance(SUMO) (no Cyc class: subclass of Object)#
          BiologicallyActiveSubstance(SUMO)
            DrugSubstance (Cyc: an object)
            Hormone(SUMO)
        SelfConnectedObject(SUMO)(no Cyc class)#
          BodyOfWater(Cyc)/BodyOfWater(SUMO – earth only)*
        Artifact(Cyc - inanimate)/Artifact(SUMO)
        InformationBearingObject(Cyc)/ContentBearingObject(SUMO)
          LinguisticExpression(SUMO only)
            Language(SUMO – physical, not abstract)#
            Text(SUMO – physical, not abstract)#
        OrganicStuff(Cyc)
          DeadAnimal
          VegetableMatter
          Food(Cyc)/Food(SUMO) 
          BiologicalLivingObject*
        ComplexPhysicalObject(i.e., has parts)
          BiologicalLivingObject(Cyc)/OrganicObject(SUMO)*
            AnimalBLO(Cyc – includes animal parts)
            Organism-Whole(Cyc)/Organism(SUMO)
              Animal(Cyc)/Animal(SUMO)*
                Person(Cyc)/Human(SUMO)*
     **feature(DOLCE – no exact Cyc equivalent, parasitic on objects; parent = TwoOrHigherDimensionalThing)
          Surface-Generic(parent in DOLCE would be feature) 
          Hole-Cavity-Conduit(SNAP-BFO: parent in DOLCE would be feature)
        ArtObject
        DrugSubstance (an object)*
        AstronomicalObject
          HeavenlyBody
          Satellite(SUMO)
            Planet(Cyc)/Planet(SUMO)
  TemporalThing
    Situation-Temporal(Cyc)/perdurant(DOLCE)
      Event(Cyc)/Process(SUMO)/event(DOLCE)/ProcessualEntity(SPAN-BFO)
        Action(Cyc)/IntentionalProcess(SUMO)/action(DOLCE)/Activity(ISO 15926 ?)
        phenomenon(DOLCE – no actor involved)
        InformationTransferPhysicalEvent(Cyc)/Communication(SUMO – parents are also SocialInteraction and IntentionalProcess)/communication-event(DOLCE)#
        InstantaneousEvent(COSMO)/Event(ISO 15926)
        MovementOrShapeChangeEvent(Cyc)
          MovementEvent(Cyc)/Motion(SUMO)
            Translocation(Cyc)/Translocation(SUMO)
              TransportationEvent(Cyc)/Transportation(SUMO)
    Group(Cyc – may have intangibles)
        Collection(SUMO: tangibles only, no identical Cyc class)
    SomethingExisting
      Agent-Generic(Cyc)/Agent(DOLCE)/SentientAgent(SUMO)
        MultiIndividualAgent
          Organization(Cyc)/Organization(SUMO)
        Agent(Cyc)/agentive-physical-object(DOLCE)
          Animal(Cyc)/Animal(SUMO)*
            Person(Cyc)/Human(SUMO)*
    Artifact-Generic (includes conceptual works, laws, information objects)
      Artifact*
  PartiallyIntangibleIndividual
    IntangibleIndividual
      TimeInterval(Cyc)/TimeInterval(SUMO)/period_in_time(ISO 15926)
      description(DOLCE D&S)/MentalObject(COSMO – suggested)*
        Language(DOLCE D&S: differs from Cyc and SUMO)#*
        Information-encoding-system(DOLCE)*
          grammar(DOLCE)
      Artifact-Intangible(Cyc)*
      AbstractInformationalThing(Cyc)/information-object(DOLCE D&S)*
        AbstractInformationStructure
          CharacterString
            Address-LocationDesignator(Cyc)/address(SUMO – is a relational attribute!)##
        CommunicationConvention*
          Language(Cyc – abstract: see SUMO – physical' see DOLCE-description)#
        Information-Content
          Proposition(Cyc)/Proposition(SUMO)/Proposition(DOLCE)[the abstract propositional content of some sentence or formula in any language]
            FieldOfStudy(Cyc: - directly under AbstractInformationalThing)/FieldOfStudy(SUMO – directly under Proposition) 
PartiallyIntangible
Intangible(Cyc)/Abstract(SUMO)/abstract_object(ISO 15926)
  IntangibleIndividual*
          ConstantQuantity(SUMO – measures)
          UnitOfMeasure(SUMO – represented in Cyc as a function)
    AttributeValue(21 in Cyc)/Attribute(SUMO)/quality-space(DOLCE – but disjoint in DOLCE)
  Quantity(SUMO: Direct subclass of Abstract)#
  MathematicalThing
    Relation(Cyc)/Relation(SUMO: direct subclass of Abstract)
      Function-Denotational(Cyc)/Function(SUMO) (A logical function, not object oo person 'function': can be used to form 'function terms' or 'non-atomic terms')
    MathematicalObject
      Number-General(Cyc)/arithmetic_number(ISO 15926)/Number(SUMO: Direct subclass of Quantity)#
      NTupleInterval
        ScalarInterval(Cyc)/PhysicalQuantity(SUMO: direct subclass of Quantity)#
SetOrCollection(Cyc)/SetOrClass(SUMO)
  Set-Mathematical(Cyc)/Set(SUMO)/set(DOLCE)
PathSystem
  Graph(SUMO)/PointFinitePathSystem(Cyc – different?)
    Multigraph(Cyc)/Multigraph(SUMO)
Path-Generic
  Path-Customary
    PathArtifact
      PathForWheeledVehicles(Cyc)/LandTransitway(SUMO)
        Roadway(Cyc)/Roadway(SUMO)
        Railway
non-agentive-social-object(DOLCE D&S)/MentalEntity(COSMO – suggested)
  Artifact-Intangible(Cyc - some overlap with AbstractInformationalThing)*
    Agreement(Cyc)
    ConceptualWork(Cyc)
  AbstractInformationalThing(Cyc)/information-object(DOLCE D&S)*
    FieldOfStudy(Cyc)/FieldOfStudy(in SUMO, direct subclass of Proposition)  *
  description(DOLCE D&S)/MentalObject(COSMO – suggested)*
    Language(DOLCE D&S: differs from Cyc and SUMO)#*
    Specification (COSMO - suggested)
      Procedure(SUMO)/Method (DOLCE)
        Plan(SUMO)Plan(DOLCE)
        ComputerProgram(SUMO)/ProgramSpecification(Cyc)
    CommunicationConvention(Cyc)*
    Information-encoding-system(DOLCE)*
      grammar(DOLCE)
Context(COSMO – added: see Wiki)
GenericSubstance(COSMO-added: not an object, includes chemicals)
physical_object (ISO 15926, perdurant objects extended in time)/Object4D(COSMO)
  SpatialLocation(ISO 15926, object-referenced location, 4D)
SpaceTimeRegion(SPAN-BFO)/spatio-temporal-region(DOLCE)

;;---------
;; Specific Cyc stuff below
CyclAssertion
CustomaryPathCycConstant
ELTemplate
IndeterminateTerm
IndexicalConcept
SubLExpression
CycLTerm
SubLTemplate
TestingConstant
TheTerm
NL-object  Note that Cyc has two layers between IntangibleIndividual and Proposition; in SUMO Proposition is a direct subclass of Abstract

Top Levels of the SUMO and DOLCE

;; SUMO Physical

  Object
    SelfConnectedObject
      Substance
      Food
      BodyOfWater
    Region
    Collection
    Agent
      GeopoliticalArea
      Group
      SentientAgent
        CognitiveAgent
          Human
          Organization
    Satellite
  Process
    DualObjectprocess
    IntentionalProcess
    Motion
    InternalChange
Abstract
  Quantity
  Attribute
  SetOrClass
  Relation
  Proposition
  Graph
  GraphElement
  ProcessTask    ;; ===================== ;; DOLCE-
Descriptions and Situtaions

Spatio-Temporal-particular

  endurant
    non-physicalenduran
    physical-endurant
    arbitrary-sum
    agent
  perdurant
    event
    stative
  quality
    abstract-quality
    physical-quality
      spatial-location_q
    temporal-quality
      temporal_locaation_q
  edns;physical-realization    Abstract

  proposition
  region
    abstract-region
    physical-region
    quale
    quality-space
    temporal-region
      time-interval
  set

Dolce Definitions

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OpenCyc Definitions

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Top Level 2

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Glossary

1. Semantic Interoperability

1.1 The ability of two independent programs with reasoning capability to arrive at the same conclusions from the same data. -- Patrick Cassidy

an expanded definition of Semantic Interoperability is also available on Wikipedia.

1.2 The ability of an information system, without additional human intervention, to perform the tasks for which it was designed through the exchange of relevant data with other systems in ways mediated by formally specific definitions and axioms, independently of how and for what purpose this data was originally collected, stored and managed. -- Barry Smith

1.3 The ability of one system to utilize data from an external source (without prior planning) and output useful (though not necessarily perfect) results. -- James Schoening

1.4 The ability of two or more systems to exchange information without significant loss of meaning; especially in the case when the information produced by one of them, using information provided by another, may be transferred back to the originating system and there enable further processing to be performed. -- Pat Hayes

1.5 The ability of communicating networked entities to achieve mutually consistent semantic interpretations of the intent and information exchanged in their interactions. -- John Yanosy

2. Formal (adjective)

2.1 Described in terms sufficiently precise as to permit analysis using conventional mathematical techniques. -- Pat Hayes

Original Members

Patrick Cassidy

Joseph Martinelli

Brand Niemann

James Schoening

Antoinette Arsic

Nicolas Rouquette

Susan Turnbull

Peter Yim

Katherine Goodier

Steve Hunter

Pointers

This page contains pointers to resources for information on ontologies, taxonomies, thesauri, and other knowledge classification systems. At present there is no special organization for this page, but as it grows we will decide on how to make it easily navigable. Anyone with knowledge of knowledge classification work that is not already mentioned here is encouraged to add pointers to that work by editing this Wiki -- see the top right icon to enable editing and the bottom of the page for the edit button.

Pointers to Other Sites Summarizing Ontology work:

Search the Web for Ontologies by Content:

Ontology Libraries:

Upper Ontology Studies:

Existing Upper Ontologies:

Domain Ontologies and Related Work:

Logic Languages for Reasoning with Ontologies:

Ontology Editing Tools:

Individual Resource Pointers:

Ontology Merging and Mapping:

Papers, Presentations or Reviews:

From Antoinette Arsic's (MITRE) Taxonomy Blog:

  • ANSI/ISO Standard Z39.19-2005: Guidelines for the Construction, Format, and Management of Monolingual Controlled Vocabularies (2005 version)
  • NOTE: These pointers are not yet functional, but only a list indicating the range of taxonomies in current use. Permission is being sought to post the actual taxonomies on a public web site.
  • METOC
  • DHS-CDMV3 (DHS Taxonomy)
  • CALL
  • C2IEDM
  • LC
  • NGA Products Ontology
  • OpenCyc Indented
  • COI Metamodel
  • AMSO
  • TRADOC
  • DON
  • Reference Ontology
  • Taxonomy Naming Guidance
  • Word Net Nounds Sumo
  • State Dept Subject Tags
  • State Dept Tag Terms
  • Warfighter GIG V2
  • Web Services Taxonomy
  • Standards Category Coordinators
  • Glosso-Thesaurus
  • Horizontal Fusion
  • IDM Paper on Classification
  • Intro to Dewey Decimal Classification
  • JITF-CT
  • Sample Dewey
  • (3) For a paper on two approaches of ontology development see : http://www.scs.org/scsarchive/getDoc.cfm?id=2220

Other Ontology-Related Activities:

Ontology Groups:

Project Mission

  • To improve the efficiency of creation of knowledge classifications and semantic knowledge bases by providing a convenient source for information about ongoing efforts at creating ontologies, taxonomies, thesauri, graphical knowledge representations, and terminological resources.
  • To maintain a list of resources and tools that can be used to create and effectively use knowledge classifications and knowledge bases.
  • To increase the ability to accurately share and reuse knowledge by building a common upper and mid-level ontology sufficient to provide a fundamental conceptual vocabulary that can serve to specify the meanings of the terms and concepts in the community knowledge classifications, by combination and extension of the basic concepts.
  • To specify the meanings of the terms in the knowledge classifications by use of the basic concepts in the higher-level ontology.
  • To relate the terms in each community knowledge classification to the terms in other classifications.

Semantic Social Computing

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