Methontology: From Ontological art to Ontological Engineering A lecture by João Cardoso & Sebastião Freire 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Table of Contents Motivation Ontology Development Process Ontology Life Cycle Methontology Conclusions 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Table of Contents Motivation Ontology Development Process Ontology Life Cycle Methontology Conclusions 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Motivation Ontologies were being built with different methods and techniques. There was a need for standardization 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Table of Contents Motivation Ontology Development Process Ontology Life Cycle Methontology Conclusions 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Ontology Development Process The Ontology Development Process refers to what activities need to be carried out when building ontologies. It comprises the following activities: Plan Purpose and Scope Sources of Knowledge, processes and techniques Conceptual Model Formalization Integrate Formal Language Implementation Evaluation Documentation Maintenance 1. The main tasks to be done, time and resources needed 2. Why it is being built and intended users 3. Self evident 4. Creation of a conceptual model for the ontology based on the aggregated knowledge 5. Formalize the conceptual model 6. Integrate other ontologies as much as possible 7. Formalize the ontology in a formal representation 8. Evaluate the ontology before publishing 9. Document the ontology for future use and share 10. Maintain the ontology 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Table of Contents Motivation Ontology Development Process Ontology Life Cycle Methontology Conclusions 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Ontology Life Cycle 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Table of Contents Motivation Ontology Development Process Methontology Conclusions 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (1/10) 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (2/10) Specification The goal of the specification is to produce either an informal, semi-formal or formal ontology specification document written in natural language, using a set of intermediate representations or using competency questions, respectively. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (3/10) Specification The goal of the specification is to produce either an informal, semi-formal or formal ontology specification document written in natural language, using a set of intermediate representations or using competency questions, respectively. A good ontology specification document must have the following properties: Concision Partial Completeness Consistency 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (4/10) Specification 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (5/10) Conceptualization During the conceptualization task the domain knowledge will be structured into a conceptual model that describes the problem and its solution in terms of the domain vocabulary identified in the ontology specification task. The product should be a glossary of terms, which includes concepts, instances, verbs and properties. This identifies and gather all the useful and potentially usable domain knowledge and its meanings. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (6/10) Conceptualization Data Dictionaries – describes and gathers all potentially usable domain concepts, their meanings attributes, instances, etc. Tables of Instance Attributes – provide information about the attribute or about its values at the instance Tables of Class Attributes – describe the concept itself and not its instances Tables of Constants – specify the information related to the domain of knowledge that always takes the same value Tables of Instances – define instances Attributes Classification Trees – geographically display attributes and constants related in the inference sequence of the root attributes. Verbs Dictionary – expresses the meaning of verbs in a declarative way Tables of Conditions – Specify a set of conditions to be satisfied before executing an action, or set of conditions 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (7/10) Integration Definitions built in other ontologies might be used to speed up the creation process. As such it is necessary to perform integration. Inspect the meta ontologies to see those that fit better in our conceptualization Find out which libraries of ontologies provide definitions of terms whose semantic and implementation is coherent with yours Integration document summarizes the meta-ontology that I will use for each and every term. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (8/10) Implementation The implementation task implies formalizing the meta-ontology and ontologies selected in the integration task. The result should be a ontology codified in a formal language. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (9/10) Evaluation Evaluation means to carry out a technical judgement of the ontologies, their software environment and documentation with respect to a frame of reference (in this case the requirements specification document) during each phase and between phases of their life cycle. The outcome of the evaluation should be several evaluation documents in which the ontologist will describe how the ontology has been evaluated, the techniques used and the kind of errors found in each activity. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Methontology (10/10) Documentation There were no consensuated guidelines on how to document ontologies. Methontology aims to solve this by including documentation in every activity in the ontology development process. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Table of Contents Motivation Ontology Development Process Methontology Conclusions 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico Conclusions Identified a set of activities to be perfomed during the ontology development process. Proposes the evolving prototype as the life cycle that best fits the ontology life cycle. Defines the Methontology, a methodology that aims to structure ontology creation. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico

Instituto Superior Técnico References M. Fernández-López, A. Gómez-Pérez, N. Juristo. “Methontology: from ontological art towards ontological engineering”. 1997. 11/22/2018 Instituto Superior Técnico