CctsResponse V2pt01

= CCTS v2.01 Feedback and Recommendations - Project Home Page =

Work Product

 * The Ontolog Community's Response to the UN/CEFACT Core Components Working Group's CCTS (Core Component Technical Specifications) v2.01 solicitation for comments and candidate requirements for the next version -- Memorandum and Report, dated Jan. 21, 2005.

Work Sessions

 * Resources: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?CctRepresentation#nid0110
 * Work Sessions:
 * http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2005_01_20#nid043
 * http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2005_01_13#nid090
 * Work session: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2004_12_23#nid032
 * CCTS v2.01 Reesponse subproject started - http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2004_12_16#nid060 & http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2004_12_16#nid118

Draft Response
To: Mary Kay Blantz From: Ontolog Community Date: January 20, 2005 Subject: Feedback on ebXML Core Component Technical Specification v2.01 Mary Kay, This comprises the Ontolog Community's response to your call for review of the Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS) v2.01. We are making two recommendations: 1) That the CCTS include a normative statement of relationship to a formal upper ontology and that any areas of redundancy and ambiguity be resolved. 2) That we establish more formal working relationships between our two communities. Ontolog (http://ontolog.cim3.net) is an open, international, virtual community of practice working on business domain ontologies. To date, it has over 100 members from more than 13 countries. The community was convened as an offshoot of the OASIS UBL effort in 2002 to:


 * Discuss practical issues and strategies associated with the development of both formal and informal ontologies used in business, and
 * Identify ontological engineering approaches that might be applied to eBusiness standardization efforts. To further our goal of using formalized ontologies to express eBusiness data standards, we launched a project to map the approved Core Component Types (CCTs) to a standardized upper ontology (http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?CctRepresentation). For each approved CCT and their corresponding supplementary components, we attempted to find an equivalent concept in SUMO (Suggested Upper Merged Ontology), MILO (Middle Level Ontology), or the QoS-Ontology (an existing ontology of concepts used in the IT industry). Where precise mappings to the existing ontologies could not be achieved, we extended them. CCT-Ont contains the set of axioms needed to formalize the CCTs. These are encoded using KIF (Knowledge Interchange Format) syntax. Areas of semantic ambiguity were briefly noted in a consolidated worksheet, which has been included with this message. This mapping activity was effectively completed by December 2004. In January, 2005, to provide more meaningful feedback to the UN/CEFACT Core Components Committee, we reviewed our work and assessed the quality of the resulting mappings. We ranked the mapping of each concept using one of three categories:
 * A: No issues, solid mapping
 * B: Minor issues
 * C: Significant issues The results of our assessment are are included in the attached worksheet. At this time, we have not attempted to identify specific causes / drivers for the issues that we have identified. It could be that we were not working from the most authoritative documentation (http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/reference/UBL-ebXML/CEFACT-CCTS-Version-2pt01.pdf). Another possibilty is that we were unable to fully interpret the intended semantics of the CCTS terms. It is also possible that some of the CCTS terms, as defined, remain ambiguous and warrant further specification. We look foward to continuing our working relationshp with the UN/CEFACT Core Components Committee to move our project forward. Perhaps we could set up a more formal liasion relationship between Ontolog and the Core Components Committee, that goes beyond our currently overlapping memberships. A joint working group may now be in order. In any event, we would welcome any opportunity to schedule discussions to explore the percieved issues and clarify the semantics of the CCTS. As part of this response, we are also including material which was prepared for a Semantic Harmonization panel a the recent EIDX workshop (http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?ConferenceCall_2004_12_01). The first document is a presentation which provides an overview of formalized ontologies. The second is a document which attempts to outline a business case for the use of ontological engineering in the development of data standards. For Ontolog, Kurt W. Conrad /s/ kwc 2005.01.20 12:53
 * Project Participants
 * PatCassidy
 * KurtConrad
 * PeterDenno
 * ScottLHolmes
 * NenadIvezic
 * HolgerKnublauch
 * MonicaMartin
 * TimMcGrath
 * GarretMinakawa
 * DuaneNickull
 * AdamPease (Lead Ontologist)
 * SueProbert
 * NicolasRouquette
 * BobSmith
 * AlanStitzer
 * EvanWallace
 * PeterYim (Project Manager)
 * Project Observers
 * LisaColvin
 * MarkCrawford
 * BoNewman
 * JohnYunker

Attachments This memo: [filename] CCT-Ontology Mapping Worksheet: [filename] Also available at [???] Explicit Semantics for Business Ontology Presentation: EIDX-20041201-AP-PY.ppt Also available at http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/presentation/EIDX_Semantic-Harmonization_20041201/Explicit_Semantics_for_Business_Ontology--AdamPease-PeterYim_EIDX-20041201.ppt A Case for the Ontological Expression of E-Business Standards: EIDX-20041201-KC-GN-RS.pdf Also available at http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/resource/presentation/EIDX_Semantic-Harmonization_20041201/Ontological_Expression_of_E-Business_Standards--KurtConrad-BoNewman-BobSmith_EIDX-20041201.pdf End Draft /s/ kwc 2005.01.20 12:57