Ontology development is consensus creation, not (merely) representation

Abstract

Ontology development methodologies emphasise knowledge gathering from domain experts and documentary resources, and knowledge representation using an ontology language such as OWL or FOL. However, working ontologists are often surprised by how challenging and slow it can be to develop ontologies. Here, with a particular emphasis on the sorts of ontologies that are content-heavy and intended to be shared across a community of users (reference ontologies), we propose that a significant and heretofore under-emphasised contributor of challenges during ontology development is the need to create, or bring about, consensus in the face of disagreement. For this reason reference ontology development cannot be automated, at least within the limitations of existing AI approaches. Further, for the same reason ontologists are required to have specific social-negotiating skills which are currently lacking in most technical curricula.

Chebifier: automating semantic classification in ChEBI to accelerate data-driven discovery

“…Such a consensus however often does not exist, and building a consensus is often what makes the ontology development time-consuming in the first place. 13 A system that is supposed to successfully extend an ontology is therefore required to first understand the underlying design principles that an ontology is based on. One way to achieve this is to use the ontology itself as training data for a model.…”

“…At the same time, fully automated approaches are unlikely to match the nuance and sophistication of human annotators, and in particular, cannot replace the community-involving consensus-building work of negotiating contested classifications. 13 …”

A goal-oriented method for FAIRification planning

“…The main aim of this task is to bridge the knowledge gap between domain and FAIR experts to prepare them for subsequent phases. The motivation for this comes from the work of Neuhaus & Hastings [15], who suggests techniques to involve stakeholders in the ontology development process. By engaging the groups of stakeholders in each other's domain, we reuse the authors' proposed techniques of "creating micro-level consensus" (micro-level: project scope), which is expected to establish a more inclusive participatory environment for the discussion of objectives.…”

Applied ontology: Where are we now and where are we going?

“…Expanding the training of ontologists with a balanced background with both the formal, theoretical and the human skills (cf. Neuhaus and Hastings, 2022) to capture and formalise knowledge is a pressing need. Here we will need to broaden significantly educational and training materials (textbooks, online materials, etc.…”

“…We would like therefore also to see the journal as a further component of this broad strategy of field-building, placed alongside emerging textbooks (cf. Keet, 2020) and the active and growing array of satellite workshops and training events we now see accompanying the Formal Ontology and Information Systems (FOIS) conferences in such configurations as the Bolzano 'Summer of Knowledge' events and the recurring 'Joint Ontology Workshops' (JOWO) active since 2015, 2 as well as the webinars and educational materials of the Educational Series on Applied Ontology (ESAO) active since 2021. 3 A particular event to look out for will be a panel discussion around the theme "What are good Applied Ontology papers" that is being organized for this year's Interdisciplinary School on Applied Ontology (ISAO).…”