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Hi All,<br>
<br>
It is generally agreed that we need an representation independent
object model or ontology of some kind. I would like to put together a
list of the things that need to be agreed or investigated in order to
do this.<br>
<br>
Firstly the things I believe we can all agree on (stop me if I am
wrong).<br>
<ol>
<li>It should be representation independent (i.e. we should be able
to move it between 'languages' UML, OWL, BNF etc).</li>
<li>It should be dynamic (i.e. capable of evolving through time).</li>
<li>It should be polymorphic. This is a result of it being dynamic.
There will, at a minimum, be multiple version of any one part of the
model when new version are introduced.<br>
</li>
<li>It should NOT attempt to be omniscient i.e. it will not cover
everything in our domain, only the parts that need to be communicated.<br>
</li>
<li>It will be managed in a distributed fashion. Different teams will
take responsibility for different parts of it.</li>
</ol>
My first Question is:<br>
<br>
<b>Does the centralization of the ontology need to go beyond a small
shared vocabulary of terms or base classes?</b> <br>
<br>
I envisage this ontology containing things like Collection, Specimen,
TaxonConcept, TaxonName but not defining the detailed structure of
these objects. It would contain a maximum of a few 10's of objects and
properties. TDWG subgroups would be responsible for building ontologies
that extend these base objects but that generally didn't refer to each
other - only to the core. If this is true then I think the definition
of the top level object falls within the remit of the TAG ( in
consultation with others). <br>
<br>
If this is not a valid way forward what are the alternatives?<br>
<br>
Are their questions we should ask before this one?<br>
<br>
Once again I'd be grateful for your thoughts.<br>
<br>
Roger<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-------------------------------------
Roger Hyam
Technical Architect
Taxonomic Databases Working Group
-------------------------------------
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.tdwg.org">http://www.tdwg.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:roger@tdwg.org">roger@tdwg.org</a>
+44 1578 722782
-------------------------------------
</pre>
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