ConferenceCall 2006 08 22

= [ontolog] Member Conference Call - Thu 2006-08-22 =

Conference Call Details

 * Subject: [ontolog] member conference call Thu 2006-08-22


 * Date: Thursday, Aug. 22, 2006
 * Start Time: 17:30 UTC / 1:30 PM EDT / 10:30 AM PDT World Clock
 * Expected Call Duration: ~1.5 hour
 * Dial-in Number: 1-641-696-6600 (Iowa)
 * Participant Access Code: "686564#"


 * Agenda Comments:
 * a key agenda item for this call is to plan out a short series of events (theme, program), possibly on "Measurement & Evaluation of Ontology, and Supporting Tools" and/or some other theme of mutual interest. This series is envisioned as a NIST-Ontolog-NCOR collaboration.
 * please post any suggested agenda items (under "Agenda Ideas" below) to the call wiki page and upload any material to be shared to the list, to the wiki or by [[WebDAV] upload] prior to the meeting
 * VNC session (if needed) will be started 5 minutes before the call at: http://vnc2.cim3.net:5800/
 * view-only password: "ontolog"
 * view-and-control pw: to be supplied during session as needed
 * Wiki page for this call (i.e. this page) is at: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2006_08_22

Attendees

 * Attended:
 * PeterYim
 * RexBrooks
 * SteveRay (Chair)
 * EvanWallace
 * MarcWine
 * MarkMusen
 * AdamPease
 * Mark Crayton (Navy)


 * Expecting:
 * BarrySmith
 * LeoObrst
 * KurtConrad
 * ...(add your name here)...


 * Regrets:
 * MarcelVanMackelenbergh
 * MatthewWest
 * BobSmith
 * DuaneNickull

Agenda Ideas (candidate items to be adopted into the agenda for discussion)

 * a key agenda item for this call is to plan out a short series of events (theme, program), possibly on "Measurement & Evaluation of Ontology, and Supporting Tools" and/or some other theme of mutual interest. This series is envisioned as a NIST-Ontolog-NCOR collaboration.
 * see /Prep
 * ...(add suggested items here)...

Agenda & Proceedings
1) Welcome & confirmation of agenda


 * SteveRay takes the chair and welcomed everyone.

2) Appointment of secretary to take minutes


 * PeterYim volunteered

3) Roll-call of participants - skipped straight to item 8


 * see above


 * Welcome new Ontolog members:
 * new [ontolog-forum] subscribers:
 * CongminMin (Software Engineer, Language Computer Corporation)
 * AntoinetteArsic (MITRE)
 * ChandanNayak (IIT, Bombay, India)
 * BiswanathDutta (DRTC, ISI, Bangalore, India)
 * OwenAmbur (DoI)
 * JoanKarrie (EPA)

4) Upcoming meeting & event schedule (near future)


 * Scheduled Ontolog Events:
 * Thu 2006.08.31 - planning session for a mini-series on "Database & Ontology" - see: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DatabaseAndOntologyConferenceCall_2006_08_10
 * Thu 2006.09.14 - AlanRector - "Terminologies and Ontologies: What are they for? What would it mean to QA an ontology?" - see: ConferenceCall_2006_09_14
 * Ontology Applications in Emergency Response Panel Discussion - Organizers (Moderator): RexBrooks & BobSmith - now postponed until Rex and Bob recommends another date for the event.


 * Other upcoming events of interest:
 * see: RelevantEventsOfInterest2006

5) Communications, logistics, & work protocols issues

6) Follow-ups from previous calls


 * (from our 2006.08.03 call) - Rex to be posting the notes from the interactive portion of the 2006.07.23 workshop over the coming weekend.


 * postmortem of the "Ontologizing the Ontolog Body of Knowledge" series of events - ref: OntologizingOntolog
 * what was good about it
 * what can be improved
 * Peter: still hope we can have more projects going
 * follow-up plan and action
 * will schedule this for some other time
 * discussion


 * Engaging UN/CEFACT
 * Kurt: suggest we schedule a UN/CEFACT-ONTOLOG joint teleconference (hopefully on a Thursday) so that we can do a focused discussion
 * will need to follow-up with BillMcCarthy & AndersTell


 * Should we have a joint presence at OIS2006? - OIS2006: 1st International Workshop on Ontologizing Industrial Standards
 * this is exactly what we said we'll strive to do on our charter! - ref: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nidB
 * November 6-9, 2006 - Tucson, Arizona, USA - colocated with the 25th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling (ER2006)
 * we should at least make Ontolog's presence known
 * Let's ping YorkSure (who's on their program committee) about it when he speaks on 8/17 -- we seem to have missed that (no one seems to have brought this up at the York Sure session)

7) Current Project Status Report


 * Status CctRepresentation and UblOntology project work
 * Steve: some people (like EvanWallace) at NIST are working on ebXML and use of ebXML registry, they would be interested in what has been done
 * ... ref. item 8 below


 * Status of ProtegeKIF project work


 * status of NHIN-RFI & Health-Ont project work


 * status of OntologizingOntolog project work
 * status of OntologTaxoThesaurus (sub-)project work


 * status of NIST-Ontolog-NCOR collaboration project work
 * ... ref. item 8 below


 * status of DatabaseAndOntology mini-series project work


 * UBL liaison report
 * SICoP liaison report
 * ONTAC-WG liaison report
 * CUO-WG liaison report
 * NCOR relationship
 * ... ref. item 8 below
 * NIST Collaboration
 * ... ref. item 8 below
 * Planning team report

8) Key Issues discussion:


 * planning out a short series of events (theme, program), possibly on "Measurement & Evaluation of Ontology, and Supporting Tools" and/or some other theme of mutual interest. This series is envisioned as a NIST-Ontolog-NCOR collaboration.
 * see - /Prep for background and ideas on things we might address at this call. (-- SteveRay / PeterYim)
 * SteveRay's view on new collaborations
 * Successful collaborations work best when they build on work already ongoing within host institutions. This minimizes the need to start cold with the issue of how to find funding to pursue work. In this spirit, NIST is prepared to share current ongoing work related to measuring and evaluating ontologies, and the tools we intend to build to help do that. If other ontolog forum members find that our work meshes well with their own (already funded) ongoing work, then we have the ingredients for a fruitful collaboration. Note that this model is not one of finding new funding, but rather that of getting more bang for the buck that is already there.
 * proposed items for discussion (by SteveRay):
 * Discussion of future presentations, clustered under themes. Ideas from NIST include:
 * Quality of Design tool (for XML-encoded models)
 * Evaluating the use of SUMO for a supply chain model, using Vampire (MOSS project) - work by PeterDenno (with AdamPease)
 * XML-to-OWL conversion tool for schema consistency checking
 * Schematron-based tool for content checking of XML schemas
 * AEON project (YorkSure)
 * Ideas for future tools and techniques for ontology evaluation
 * An objective means of classifying something as an ontology, or taxonomy, or data model, or tagged markup...
 * Structural integrity, logical consistency
 * Richness (expressivity) of the representation language
 * For a given ontology, degree of exploitation of the representation language (i.e. you can still build a trivial structure using a highly expressive language)
 * Translation tools: XML to OWL, OWL to UML, etc.
 * Ideas on a role for the ontolog forum in collecting and articulating the case for ontologies
 * we should leave the meeting with (at least):
 * A set of themes that will guide future presentations
 * A sense of the group on whether the ontolog forum could play an advocacy role
 * Additional Remarks:


 * discussion:
 * Steve opens with his observation about the value of synergy on activities already on the way, and offer the theme "Measurement & Evaluation of Ontology, and Supporting Tools"
 * Steve: ran down the list of topics they could bring to the table (using the word "ontology" fairly liberally here ... some project initially are not ontology specific)
 * Mark: this is an important area of discussion ... so far, 'whoever gets there first declares the standard', people don't often question (or start competing with) the early entrants enough. Therefore this is important in making sure we are doing it right. Having measn for evaluation, metrics, etc. are absolutely essential.
 * Rex: agree, especially interested in XML to OWL to UML kinds of conversion (or even OWL to XMI) ... that would be helpful to applications developer.
 * Steve: this would be on top of evaluation, but development of translation tool to support application development
 * Steve: maybe even some tool that measure whether something is an 'ontology' or not ... since 'ontology' is still loosely defined unfortunately (similar to the SEI Maturity Model)
 * Adam: love to see how PeterDenno has been progressing, I've got tons of more work done since we last worked together. I can summarize some of the new work for everyone, but more importantly, please download and evaluate.
 * Marc: what is discussed here is critically important in healthcare informatics, and they need to be articulated to and understandable by the practitioners.
 * Peter: for the healthcare related work, are there funding opportunities?
 * Marc: not likely to see additional resources from government. Try looking to industry ... bio-surveillance ... NHIN contract prototypes ... endemic deseases ... emergency preparedness ... (Marc / Steve: through applications)
 * Peter: (i) maybe we should take the opportunity to systematically evangelize the use of 'ontologies' too - people needs to buy into 'ontologies' first before they will buy into the need for testing and the setting up proper metrics on 'ontologies', also (ii) path toward standardization (similar to what OASIS has been doing to XML)
 * Steve: routine process ... structural integrity ... logical consistency ... quality control ...
 * ANSI HITSP - recognizes the lack of semantic interoperability
 * Steve: the difficulty in properly assessing ontologies is partly due to the fact that we don't even know what the 'unit of measure' is
 * Marc: will look to NIST to head up the effort ... maybe in a pilot going with ONC / FHS (possibly under RamSriram's team)
 * I second that
 * Rex: we could send a support letter
 * Steve: besides ONTOCLEAN, are people aware of other tools for ontology evaluation
 * Peter: YorkSure presented ONTOCOM, and Valerie Cross presented on CAT at last month's Protege conference ... people might like to look at
 * Adam: the root cause for the lack of 'quantitative' assessment is that people have been taking light weight approaches to ontologies, resulting in people spending time arguing the making 'esthetic' evaluation rather than 'quantitative' evaluation.
 * Adam: I am skeptical about 'design principles' ... because they are not really testable or provable
 * Adam: one test maybe to measure ("richness"?) how an ontology can be 'translated' to less expressive language without losing information.
 * Steve: lots of gaps in the theoretical foundations yets, but I'll hope to be able to come up with more grounded measures
 * Adam: maybe survey what's out there (mainly lightweight, in owl, ...) and get an ideas what's there (and at what level of "richness")
 * Steve: I'll propose 6 (six) events for this series, starting a month out, and spanning the next 6 months or so (Peter / Steve: targeting about one event a month, maybe more accelerated, at times.)
 * Peter: I'll start a 'project page' called OntologyMeasurementEvaluation as the home of this work
 * Steve will pull together the thoughts and discussion today and document what our plans are for this series there.


 * Marc asked about inviting others (NHIN vendors in particular) to the Ontolog events
 * Peter: Ontolog events are always OPEN to all
 * Marc will relay the Ontolog event announcements and invitations as he sees fit.


 * Marc: seen on GCN today (2006.08.21) - big article on government use of wiki's - see: http://www.gcn.com/print/25_25/41673-1.html - congratulations to those who are part of the effort.

9) New project proposals

10) Sponsorship and funding

11) Other business

12) Next meeting date and adjourn


 * Our next meeting/call will be next Thu 2006.08.31 - planning session for a mini-series on "Database & Ontology" - ref: DatabaseAndOntology and ConferenceCall_2006_08_31
 * this call adjourned 11:36 am PDT

-- minutes captured in real time on this wiki by PeterYim / 2006.08.22-11:44am PDT Attendees are requested to review the notes above, help clean it up, and make amendments and edits as they see fit. =ppy