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Adam:
The integration model/paradigm that you describe in your case study here (i.e., the use a neutral ontology as an integrating mechanism for multiple data sources) has been used in many other integration efforts in the past ten years and is certainly a valid and successfully-used approach. See for example:
- ISO 10303: Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (www.tc184-sc4.org)
- Product Data Markup Language (www.pdml.org)
- ISO 18876 - Integration of Industrial Data for Exchange, Access, and Sharing (www.iso18876.org)
to name just a few that I've personally been involved with.
*The* most significant problem with this paradigm, however, is the development and application of mappings. What is "mapping", really? Can it be understood and taught to the general ontology-using public? Your effort was successful because you were dealing with a closed system of a known and well-defined scope and data meanings. How can the mapping lessons you learned (and were learned in the above efforts) be applied to an open system with a huge, unknown, and constantly evolving scope and fuzzy, ambiguous, context-sensitive data meanings?
While I think you can sell the neutral ontology integration model as a problem solving approach, getting people to know about and use SUMO (or any other "upper" ontology) as neutral ontology in their solution is a different kind of sales job altogether. And it is one that I don't think will be very successful - any well-defined and well-bounded integration effort will want to use their own.
Bill Burkett
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William C. Burkett 562-495-6500 x13
Product Data Integration Technologies, Inc. Fax:562-495-6509
444 W. Ocean Blvd Suite 1800 wburkett@pdit.com
Long Beach, CA, 90802 USA icq: 4508836
http://www.pdit.com
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adam Pease [mailto:apease@ks.teknowledge.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 4:17 PM
> To: SUO
> Subject: SUO: Ontology case study
>
>
>
> Folks,
> Bill Andersen and I were speaking a moment ago and he
> pointed out that I
> hadn't related an application of ontology that we did a while
> ago. My hope
> is that this case should point out one simple, concrete
> application of an
> ontology, in a deployed business environment.
> During the dot-com boom we worked with a Internet-based
> real-estate
> company to solve a database integration task. I was
> surprised to find out
> as we started the project that what consumers know as the
> Multiple Listing
> Service database that realtors use is actually a collection
> of some 30,000
> locally-developed databases that record information about
> homes for sale in
> a particular geographic area. All the databases cover the same basic
> information, but all the table names, field names, and symbols may be
> different from one database to the next.
> We created an ontology of real estate in first order
> logic, using an
> upper ontology. We then "compiled" the ontology by hand into
> a relational
> database. We then wrote scripts, again by hand, to map the
> contents of
> each MLS database into our common database. The ontology was
> robust and
> comprehensive enough such that after the first couple
> databases, and we
> eventually mapped several dozen of them, there were no
> changes to the ontology.
> The company's web site went live for several months, using our
> ontology-based database, and then they exhausted their
> funding and went out
> of business.
> Of course this is just an anecdote. I doubt it's going to change
> anyone's mind who already has a strong opinion about the
> usefulness of a
> single ontology for supporting integration. But at the very
> least, it's a
> concrete instance of the productive use of a particular
> ontology on one
> commercial integration task. I've provided references in
> previous messages
> to other government research projects where we've used ontologies for
> integration as well.
> One impact of an ontology that I find undeniable is that
> at the very
> least, a formal ontology can serve as a more precise set of
> comments about
> the meaning of database tables and fields than informal English.
> This also points out some fruitful areas of research for tool
> builders. It would be nice to compile the ontology to an SQL
> DB schema. I
> believe Bill's company is working on that. Another extremely
> valuable tool
> would be one that aids in doing the mapping from disparate
> databases to a
> common database. I'm doubtful about the prospects for doing that
> completely automatically, but hopefully that tools could be
> developed that
> would help.
> I hope this is helpful.
>
> Adam
>
>
>
> Adam Pease
> Teknowledge
> (650) 424-0500 x571
>