The Time and Technology is Here to Stand Software Engineering on its Head

As an information society we have become a software society. Software is everywhere, from our phones and our desktops, to our cars, homes and every location in between. The amount of software used worldwide is unknowable; we do not even have agreed measures to quantify its extent or value [1]. We suspect there are at least 1 billion lines of code that have accumulated over time [1,2]. On the order of $875 billion was spent worldwide on software in 2010, of which about half was for packaged software and licenses and the rest for programmer services, consulting and outsourcing [3]. In the U.S. alone, about 2 million people work as programmers or related [4].

It goes without saying that software is a very big deal.

No matter what the metrics, it is expensive to develop and maintain software. This is also true for open source, which has its own costs of ownership [5]. Designing software faster with fewer mistakes and more re-use and robustness have clearly been emphases in computer science and the discipline of programming from its inception.

This attention has caused a myriad of schools and practices to develop over time. Some of the earlier efforts included computer-aided software engineering (CASE) or Grady Booch’s (already cited in [1]) object-oriented design (OOD). Fourth-generation languages (4GLs) and rapid application development (RAD) were popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Most recently, agile software development or extreme programming have grabbed mindshare.

Altogether, there are dozens of software development philosophies, each with its passionate advocates. These express themselves through a variety of software development methodologies that might be characterized or clustered into the prototyping or waterfall or spiral camps.

In all instances, of course, the drivers and motivations are the same: faster development, more re-use, greater robustness, easier maintainability, and lower development costs and total costs of ownership.

The Ontology Perspective in this Mix

For at least the past decade, ontologies and semantic Web-related approaches have also been part of this mix. A good summary of these efforts comes from Michael Uschold in an invited address at FOIS 2008 [6]. In this review, he points to these advantages for ontology-based approaches to software engineering:

• Re-use — abstract/general notions can be used to instantiate more concrete/specific notions, allowing more reuse
• Reduced development times — producing software artifacts that are closer to how we think, combined with reuse and automation that enables applications to be developed more quickly
• Increased reliability — formal constructs with automation reduces human error
• Decreased maintenance costs — increased reliability and the use of automation to convert models to executable code reduces errors. A formal link between the models and the code makes software easier to comprehend and thus maintain.

These first four items are similar to the benefits argued for other software engineering methodologies, though with some unique twists due to the semantic basis. However, Uschold also goes on to suggest benefits for ontology-based approaches not claimed by other methodologies:

• Reduced conceptual gap — application developers can interact with the tools in a way that is closer to their thinking
• Facilitate automation — formal structures are amenable to automated reasoning, reducing the load on the human, and
• Agility/flexibility — ontology-driven information systems are more flexible, because you can much more easily and reliably make changes in the model than in code.

In making these arguments, Uschold picks up on the “ontology-driven information systems” moniker first put forward by Nicola Guarino in 1998 [7]. The ideas around ODIS have had substantial impact on the semantic Web community, especially in the use of formal ontologies and modeling approaches. The FOIS series of conferences, and most recently the ODiSE series, have been spawned from these ideas. There is also, for example, a fairly rich and developed community working on the integration of UML via ontologies as the drivers or specifiers of software [8].

Yet, as Uschold is careful to point out, the idea of ODIS extends beyond software engineering to encompass all of information systems. My own categorization of how ontologies may contribute to information systems is:

1. Domain modeling — this category includes the domain knowledge representations and reasoning and inference bases that are the traditional understanding of ontologies in the semantic space. The structural aspects are akin to a database schema definition; the unique aspects of ontologies reside in their logic foundations and graph structures, which offer more power in inferencing, reasoning and graph analysis than conventional approaches
2. Model-driven architectures (MDA) — like UML, these are platform-independent specifications that provide the functional and dataflow definitions of “models” executed by the system. These are the natural progeny of earlier CASE approaches, for example. Such systems also potentially allow graphical or visual means for building or hooking together components as a substitute to direct coding
3. Program specifications and excecutables — though fairly experimental at present, these approaches use the languages of RDF, OWL or direct use of logic languages to create the equivalent of executable software programs. A couple of experimental systems include Fhat and Neno, for example, point to possible future directions in this area [9]
4. Runtime or utility components — proper construction of ontologies can be a source for labels and prompts within user interfaces and other runtime uses. Because of the ontology basis, these contributions may also be contextual [10]
5. Automated agents — based on context, user choices and the governing ontologies, new instruction sets can be generated via what some term automated agents or “robots” to instruct subsequent steps in the software, including potentially analysis or validation. Mission Critical IT [11] is apparently the most advanced in this area; we discuss their ODASE approach more below
6. Bespoke drivers of generic applications — through using and combining a number of the aspects above, in its totality this approach is a very different paradigm, as we describe below.

When we look at this list from the standpoint of conventional software or software engineering, we see that #1 shares overlaps with conventional database roles and #2, #3 and #4 with conventional programmer or software engineering responsibilities. The other portions, however, are quite unique to ontology-based approaches.

But Is Software Engineering Even the Right Focus?

For decades, issues related to how to develop apps better and faster have been proposed and argued about. We still have the same litany of challenges and issues from expense to re-use and brittleness. And, unfortunately, despite many methodologies du jour, we still see bottlenecks in the enterprise relating to such matters as:

• data access
• queries
• data transformations
• data integration or federation
• reports
• other data presentations
• business analysis, and
• targeted, specialty functionality.

Promises such as self-service reporting touted at the inception of data warehousing two decades ago are still to be realized [12]. Enterprises still require the overhead and layers of IT to write SQL for us and prepare and fix reports. If we stand back a bit, perhaps we can come to see that the real opportunity resides in turning the whole paradigm of software engineering upside down.

Our objective should not be software per se. Software is merely an intermediary artifact to accomplish some given task. Rather than engineering software, the focus should be on how to fulfill those tasks in an optimal manner. How can we keep the idea of producing software from becoming this generation’s new buggy whip example [13]?

For reasons we delve into a bit more below, it perhaps has required a confluence of some new semantic technologies and ontologies to create the opening for a shift in perspective. That shift is one from software as an objective in itself to one of software as merely a generic intermediary in an information task pipeline.

Though this shift may not apply (at least with current technologies) to transactional and process-based software, I submit it may be fundamental to the broad category of knowledge management. KM includes such applications as business intelligence, data warehousing, data integration and federation, enterprise information integration and management, competitive intelligence, knowledge representation, and so forth. These are the real areas where integration and reports and queries and analysis remain frustrating bottlenecks for knowledge workers. And, interestingly, these are also the same areas most amenable to embracing an open world (OWA) mindset [14].

If we stand back and take a systems perspective to the question of fulfilling functional KM tasks, we see that the questions are both broader and narrower than software engineering alone. They are broader because this systems perspective embraces architecture, data, structures and generic designs. The questions are narrower because software — within this broader context — can be now be generalized as artifacts providing the fulfillment of classes of functions.

ODapps: The Ontology-Driven Application Approach

Ontology-driven applications — or ODapps for short — based on adaptive ontologies are a topic we have been nibbling around and discussing for some time. In our oft-cited seven pillars of the semantic enterprise we devote two pillars specifically (#4 and #3, respectively) to these two components [15]. However, in keeping with the systems perspective relevant to a transition from software engineering to generic apps, we should also note that canonical data models (via RDF) and a Web-oriented architecture are two additional pillars in the vision.

ODapps are modular, generic software applications designed to operate in accordance with the specifications contained in one or more ontologies. The relationships and structure of the information driving these applications are based on the standard functions and roles of ontologies (namely as domain ontologies as noted under #1 above), as supplemented by the UI and instruction sets and validations and rules (as noted under #4 and #5 above). The combination of these specifications as provided by both properly constructed domain ontologies and supplementary utility ontologies is what we collectively term adaptive ontologies [16].

ODapps fulfill specific generic tasks, consistent with their bespoke design (#6 above) to respond to adaptive ontologies. Examples of current ontology-driven apps include imports and exports in various formats, dataset creation and management, data record creation and management, reporting, browsing, searching, data visualization and manipulation (through libraries of what we call semantic components), user access rights and permissions, and similar. These applications provide their specific functionality in response to the specifications in the ontologies fed to them.

ODapps are designed more similarly to widgets or API-based frameworks than to the dedicated software of the past, though the dedicated functionality (e.g., graphing, reporting, etc.) is obviously quite similar. The major change in these ontology-driven apps is to accommodate a relatively common abstraction layer that responds to the structure and conventions of the guiding ontologies. The major advantage is that single generic applications can supply shared functionality based on any properly constructed adaptive ontology.

In fact, the widget idea from Web 2.0 is a key precursor to the ODapps design. What we see in Web 2.0 are dedicated single-purpose widgets that perform a display operation (such as Google Maps) based on the properly structured data fed to them (structured geolocational information in the case of GMaps).

In Structured Dynamics‘ early work with RDF-based applications by our predecessor company, Zitgist, we demonstrated how the basic Web 2.0 widget idea could be extended by “triggering” which kind of mashup widget got invoked by virtue of the data type(s) fed to it. The Query Builder presented contextual choices for how to build a SPARQL query via UI based on what prior dropdown list choices were made. The DataViewer displayed results with different widgets (maps, profiles, etc.) depending on which part of a query’s results set was inspected (by responding to differences in data types). These two apps, in our opinion, remain some of the best developed in the semantic Web space, even though development on both ceased nearly four years ago.

This basic extension of data-driven applications — as informed by a bit more structure — naturally evolved into a full ontology-driven design. We discovered that — with some minor best practice additions to conventional ontologies — we could turn ontologies into powerhouses that informed applications through:

• An understanding of the kind of things under consideration, including their inference chains
• The types of data in results sets, and how that informs the nature of the widget(s) (maps, calendars, timelines, charts, tabular reports, images, stories, media, etc.) appropriate to display and manipulate that information, and
• UI and utility functions such as interface labels, mouseovers, auto-suggests, spelling suggestions, synonym matches, etc.

Like the earlier Zitgist discoveries, basing the applications on only one or two canonical data models and serializations (RDF and a simple data exchange XML, which Fred Giasson calls structXML) provides the input uniformity to make a library of generic applications tractable. And, embedding the entire framework in a Web-oriented architecture means it can be distributed and deployed anywhere accessible by HTTP.

Booch has maintained for years that in software design abstraction is good, but not if too abstract [1]. ODapps are a balanced abstraction within the framework of canonical architectures, data models and data structures. This design thus limits software brittleness and maximizes software re-use. Moreover, it shifts the locus of effort from software development and maintenance to the creation and modification of knowledge structures. The KM emphasis can shift from programming and software to logic and terminology [16].

In the sub-sections below, we peel back some portions of this layered design to unveil how some of these major pieces interact.

Built Upon an Ontology- and Web-based Architecture

Again, to cite Booch, the most fundamental software design decision is architecture [1]. In the case of Structured Dynamics and its support for ODapps, its open semantic framework (OSF) is embedded in a Web-oriented architecture (WOA). The OSF itself is a layered design that proceeds from a kernel of existing assets (data and structures) and proceeds through conversion to Web service access, and then ontology organization and management via ODapps [17]. The major layers in the OSF stack are:

• Existing assets — any and all existing information and data assets, ranging from unstructured to structured. Preserving and leveraging those assets is a key premise
• scones / irON – the conversion layer, in part consisting of information extraction of subject concepts or named entities (scones) or the instance record Object Notation for conveying XML, JSON or spreadsheets (CSV) in RDF-ready form (via irON or RDFizers)
• structWSF – a platform-independent suite of more than 20 RESTful Web services, organized for managing structured data datasets; it provides the standard, common interface by which existing information assets get represented and presented to the outside world and to other layers in the OSF stack
• Ontologies — are the layer containing the structured assets “driving” the system; this includes the concepts and relationships of the domain at hand, and administrative ontologies that guide how the user interfaces or widgets in the system should behave
• conStruct – connecting modules to enable structWSF and sComponents to be hosted/embedded in Drupal, and
• sComponents – (mostly) Flex semantic components (widgets) for visualizing and manipulating structured data.

Not all of these layers or even their specifics is necessary for an ontology-driven app design [18]. However, the general foundations of generic apps, properly constructed adaptive ontologies, and canonical data models and structures should be preserved in order to operationalize ODapps in other settings.

OSF is the Basis for Domain-specific Instantiations

The power of this design is that by swapping out adaptive ontologies and relevant data, the entire OSF stack as is can be used to deploy multiple instantiations. Potential uses can be as varied as the domain coverage of the domain ontologies that drive this framework.

The OSF semantic framework is a completely open and generic one. The same set of tools and capabilities can be applied to any domain that needs to manage and understand information in its own domain. With the existing ODApps in hand, this includes from unstructured text or documents to conventional structured databases.

What changes from domain to domain are the data structures (the ontologies, schema and entity references) and their instance data (which can also be converted from existing to canonical forms). Here is an illustration of how this generic framework can be leveraged for different deployments. Note that Citizen Dan is a local government example of the OSF framework with relatively complete online demos:

(click for full size)

Structured Dynamics continues to wrinkle this basic design for different clients and different industries. As we round out the starting set of ODapps (see below), the major effort in adapting this generic design to different uses is to tailor the ontologies and “RDFize” existing data assets.

Lower Layers

Conversion of existing assets to RDF and canonical forms is not discussed further here. See the irON and scones documentation or the TechWiki for more information on these topics.

The structWSF Web Services Layer

The first suite of ODapps occurs at the structWSF Web services layer. structWSF provides a set of generic functions and endpoints to:

• Import or export datasets
• Create, update, delete (CRUD) or otherwise manage data records
• Search records with full-text and faceted search
• Browse or view existing records or record sets, based on simple to possible complex selection or filtering criteria, or
• Process results sets through workflows of various natures, involving specialized analysis, information extraction or other functions.

Here is a listing of current ODapp functions within structWSF (with links to details for each):

At this level the information access and processing is done largely on the basis of structured results sets. Other visualization and display ODapps are listed in the next subsection.

The Semantics Components Layer

The visualization and data display and manipulation ODapps are provided via the semantic components layer. Structured Dynamics’s sComponents are Flex-based widgets that conform to a standard, generic design. Other developers using the OSF framework are developing JavaScript versions [19]. Here is the current library (with links to details for each):

These components can be used in combination with any of the structWSF ODapps, meaning the filtering, searching, browsing, import/export, etc., may be combined as an input or output option with the above.

The next animated figure shows how the basic interaction flow works with these components:

(click for full size)

Using the ODapp structure it is possible to either “drive” queries and results sets selections via direct HTTP request via endpoints (not shown) or via simple dropdown selections on HTML forms or Flex widgets (shown). This design enables the entire system to be driven via simple selections or interactions without the need for any programming or technical expertise.

As the diagram shows, these various sComponents get embedded in a layout canvas for the Web page. By interacting with the various components, new queries are generated (most often as SPARQL queries) to the various structWSF Web services endpoints. The result of these requests is to generate a structured results set, which includes various types and attributes.

An internal ontology that embodies the desired behavior and display options (SCO, the Semantic Component Ontology) is matched with these types and attributes to generate the formal instructions to the sComponents. When combined with the results set data, and attribute information in the irON ontology, plus the domain understanding in the domain ontology, a synthetic schema is constructed that instructs what the interface may do next. Here is an example schema:

(click for full size)

These instructions are then presented to the sControl component, which determines which widgets (individual components, with multiples possible depending on the inputs) need to be invoked and displayed on the layout canvas.

As new user interactions occur with the resulting displays and components, the iteration cycle is generated anew, again starting a new cycle of queries and results sets. Importantly, as these pathways and associated display components get created, they can be named and made persistent for later re-use or within dashboard invocations.

Self-service Reporting

Since self-service reporting has been such a disappointment [12], it is worth noting another aspect from this ODapp design. Every “thing” that can be presented in the interface can have a specific display template associated with it. Absent another definition, for example, any given “thing” will default to its parental type (which, ultimate, is “Thing”, the generic template display for anything without a definition; this generally defaults to a presentation of all attributes for the object).

However, if more specific templates occur in the inference path, they will be preferentially used. Here is a sample of such a path:

At the ultimate level of a particular model of Olympus camera, its display template might be exactly tailored to its specifications and attributes.

This design is meant to provide placeholders for any “thing” in any domain, while also providing the latitude to tailor and customize to every “thing” in the domain.

It is critical that generic apps through an ODapp approach also provide the underpinnings for self-service reporting. The ultimate metric is whether consumers of information can create the reports they need without any support or intervention by IT.

Adaptive Analysis

The Mission Critical IT reference provided earlier [11] helps point to the potentials of this paradigm in a different way. Mission Critical also shows user interfaces contextually chosen based on prior selections. But they extend that advantage with context-specific analysis and validation through the SWRL rules-base semantic language. This is an exciting extension of the base paradigm that confirms the applicability of this approach to business intelligence and general enterprise analytics.

Standing Software Engineering on its Head

All of this points to a very exciting era for enterprise and consumer apps moving into the future. We perhaps should no longer talk about “killer apps”; we can shift our focus to the information we have at hand and how we want to structure and analyze it.

Using ontologies to write or specify code or to compete as an alternative to conventional software engineering approaches seems too much like more of the same. The systems basis in which such methodologies such as MDA reside have not fixed the enterprise software challenges of decades-long standing. Rather, a shift to generic applications driven by adaptive ontologies — ODapps — looks to shift the locus from software and programming to data and knowledge structures.

This democratization of IT means that everything in the knowledge management realm can become “self service.” We can create our own analyses; develop our own reports; and package and disseminate what we and our colleagues need, when they need it. Through ontology-driven apps and adaptive ontologies, we can turn prior decades of software engineering practices on their head.

What Structured Dynamics and a handful of other vendors are showing is by no means yet complete. Our roster of ODapp widgets and templates still needs much filling out. The toolsets available for creating, maintaining, mapping and extending the ontologies underlying these systems are still woefully inadequate [20]. These are important development needs for the near term.

And, of course, none of this means the end of software development either. Process and transactions systems still likely reside outside of this new, emerging paradigm. Creating great and solid generic ODapps still requires software. Further, ODapps and their potential are completely silent on how we create that software and with what languages or methodologies. The era of software engineering is hardly at an end.

What is exceptionally powerful about the prospects in ontology-driven apps is to speed time to understanding and place information manipulation directly in the hands of the knowledge worker. This is a vision of information access and control that has been frustrated for decades. Perhaps, with ontologies and these semantic technologies, that vision is now near at hand.

Resources Useful to the Understanding of Ontologies and the Semantic Web

Over the past few weeks we have been publishing a series of general background documents and tutorials useful to the understanding of ontologies. These entries have been prepared specifically with the non-expert and end user in mind.

The Ontology Tutorial Series is now complete as initially scoped. These various articles, in both originally posted form and as kept current on the OpenStructs‘ TechWiki [1], are:

• An Executive Intro to Ontologies [TechWiki] — an executive-level introduction to ontologies, their uses and their benefits
• A Brief Survey of Ontology Development Methodologies [TechWiki] — a survey of existing methods and approaches for how ontologies get built
• Listing of 185 Ontology Building Tools [TechWiki] — a comprehensive listing and categorization of tools for building, editing, maintaining and using ontologies; most of the tools are open source
• A New Methodology for Building Lightweight, Domain Ontologies [TechWiki] — a recommended approach and methodology for how existing practice and methods can be pragmatically combined to build and maintain ontologies
• A New Landscape in Ontology Development Tools [TechWiki] — a recommended approach and development path for the evolution of ontology tools suitable for use by knowledge workers and domain (non-ontology) experts
• Metamodeling in Domain Ontologies [TechWiki] — an important structural consideration for how to build flexible and adaptive ontologies, and
• A Reference Guide to Ontology Best Practices [TechWiki] — the capstone piece in the tutorial series that summarizes best ontology practices across all areas of use and maintenance.

OWL 2 Has New Options; Useful to SKOS, Too

It is not unusual to want to treat things either as a class or an instance in an ontology, depending on context. Among other aspects, this is known as metamodeling and it can be accomplished in a number of ways. However, the newest version of the Web Ontology Language, OWL 2, provides a neat trick for doing this called “punning“. Why one would want to metamodel, how to specify it in an ontology, and why the OWL 2 approach is helpful are described in this post [1].

Why Metamodel?

Lightweight, domain ontologies have been the focus of this ontology series. Domain ontologies are the “world views” by which organizations, communities or enterprises describe the concepts in their domain, the relationships between those concepts, and the instances or individuals that are the actual things that populate that structure. Thus, domain ontologies are the basic bread-and-butter descriptive structures for real-world applications of ontologies.

These lightweight, domain ontologies often have a hierarchical structure for which SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System) is a recommended starting ontology [2] (see best practices recommendations). A subject concept reference ontology such as UMBEL (Upper Mapping and Binding Exchange Layer) [3], which we also recommend, also has a similar structure and a heavy reliance on SKOS in its vocabulary. Because of these structural similarities, ontologies that use SKOS or UMBEL are therefore good candidates for using metamodeling techniques.

To better understand why we should metamodel, let’s look at a couple of examples, both of which combine organizing categories of things and then describing or characterizing those things. This dual need is common to most domains [4].

For the first example, let’s take a categorization of apes as a kind of mammal, which is then a kind of animal. In these cases, ape is a class, which relates to other classes, and apes may also have members, be they particular kinds of apes or individual apes. Yet, at the same time, we want to assert some characteristics of apes, such as being hairy, two legs and two arms, no tails, capable of walking bipedally, with grasping hands, and with some endangered species. These characteristics apply to the notion of apes as an instance.

As another example we may have the category of trucks, which may further be split into truck types, brands of trucks, type of engine, and so forth. Yet, again, we may want to characterize that a truck is designed primarily for the transport of cargo (as opposed to automobiles for people transport), or that trucks may have different drivers license requirements or different license fees than autos. These descriptive properties refer to trucks as an instance.

These mixed cases combine both the organization of concepts in relation to one another and with respect to their set members, with the description and characterization of these concepts as things unto themselves. This is a natural and common way to express most any domain of interest.

The practice has been to express these mixed uses in RDFS or OWL Full, which makes them easy to write and create since most “anything goes” (a loose way of saying that the structures are not decidable) [5]. Use of sub-class relationships also enables tree-like hierarchies to be constructed and some minor inferencing (such as one concept is broader than another concept, one of the contributions of SKOS).

But such mixed uses do not allow more capable OWL reasoners to be applied, nor for the full power of query or search abstraction to be applied, nor for the ontology to be checked for consistency. These limits may be fine in many circumstances, but their lack does allow structures to evolve that may become incoherent or illogical. If data interoperability is a goal, as it is in our enterprise use cases, incoherent ontologies can not contribute or participate as structures to linking datasets. At most — and this is the case for much linked data practice — all that can be done is to make explicit pairwise connections between different dataset objects. This is not efficient and defeats the whole purpose of leveraging schema. OWL 2 has been designed to fix that (in addition to other benefits [12]).

The approach taken by OWL 2 to overcome some of these metamodeling limitations is through “punning” [6]. Recall that objects are named in RDF with URIs (IRIs in OWL 2). The trick with “punning” is to evaluate the object based on how it is used contextually [7]; the IRI is shared but its referent may be viewed as either a class or instance based on context. Thus, objects used both as concepts (classes) and individuals (instances) are allowed and standard OWL 2 reasoners may be used against them.

It should be noted, however, that this “punning” technique does not support the full range of possible metamodeling aspects [8]. Like any language, there is a trade-off in OWL 2 between expressivity and reasoning efficiency [9]. But, for lightweight, domain ontologies where the objective is interoperability across heterogeneous sources — that is, namely the main objectives of the semantic Web or semantic enterprise — this trade-off in OWL 2 now appears to be well balanced. Moreover, its automatic detection by tools such as Protégé 4 that use the OWL API also means it is comparatively easy to use and implement.

Relationship to Recommended Best Practices

An earlier chapter in this series presented some best practices for ontology building and maintenance. A fundamental aspect of those recommendations was the desirability of keeping instance data (ABox) separate from the conceptual structure (TBox) that provides the schema of relationships for those concepts [10]. Fortunately, this approach also integrates well with the metamodeling capabilities in OWL 2.

How metamodeling and the ABox-TBox split is accommodated is shown by this diagram, using trucks as an example:

Figure 1. Metamodeling in Domain Ontologies (click to expand)

The right-hand side of the diagram shows the two views possible via OWL 2 metamodeling in the TBox. In some cases, we may speak of trucks as a class of vehicle, to which individual members may belong; this is the class view. In other contexts, we may want to characterize or make assertions about trucks in our ontology, such as asserting cargo transport or engine type, in which case truck is now represented as an instance (individual) under the individual view. These two views in the TBox represent our structural and conceptual description (the “world view”) regarding this domain of which vehicles and trucks are a part.

Then, when we begin to populate our knowledge base with specific data, we do so via the ABox. In this example, as we add data about the specific brand of Ford trucks and their attributes, we link the Ford instance to the TBox via the Truck class. (Best practice also requires that we model this new attribute structure into the TBox as well, but that is a different topic. .)

How Punning is Triggered in OWL 2

Punning is not triggered by annotation properties. Annotation properties applied to a class merely act as additional description or metadata about that class; the annotation property by definition does not participate in any inferencing or reasoning. You should also know that in OWL 2, certain predicates (properties) such as label, comment or description (among others) are reserved as annotation properties [11].

You can invoke the OWL 2 punning process directly or via context when your ontologies are processed with the OWL API. The basic rule to follow is:

This test is done directly by the OWL API [7]. You can go ahead and test this out with an OWL 2-compliant editor, such as Protégé 4. Here is an example test (in N3 notation):

First, begin with some initial declarations:

foo:Car a owl:Class .

foo:Animal a owl:Class ;
owl:disjointWith foo:Car .

Then, let’s describe an object property:

foo:isEndangered a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdf:domain foo:Animal ;
rdf:range bar:SomeSpecies .

And define and make an assertion about Apes:

foo:Ape a owl:Class ;
foo:isEndangered bar:SomeSpecies .

Now, the system begins by testing for punning and other checks, such as:

1. isEndangered an annotation property? no
2. what is its domain? foo:Animal
3. this will detect and infer:

foo:Ape a owl:Class ;
foo:Ape a foo:Animal ;
foo:isEndangered bar:SomeSpecies .

1. punning is triggered because non-annotation property has been applied to a class
2. non-annotation properties are now assigned to named individual (which captures individual view part of the TBox above)
3. then, can check for inconsistencies depending on the restriction(s) applied to the foo:Animal class.

In this case, no inconsistencies were found.

But, let’s now add another object (non-annotation) property:

foo:hasBrand a owl:ObjectProperty ;
rdf:domain foo:Car ;
rdf:range bar:SomeBrand .

And use it to expand our assertions about Apes:

foo:Ape a owl:Class ;
foo:isEndangered bar:SomeSpecies ;
foo:hasBrand bar:Ford .

And repeat #3:

foo:Ape a owl:Class .
foo:Ape a foo:Animal .
foo:Ape a foo:Car ;
foo:isEndangered bar:SomeSpecies ;
foo:hasBrand bar:Ford .

Now, inconsistencies are raised in the second #3:

So, the consistency check fails, because Ape can not be both an Animal and a Car.

While this is clearly a silly example, such checks are quite important as the number of objects and assertions grows in an ontology.

What Does Punning Look Like?

The punning technique works because the IRI for the object ends up being treated as both a concept (class) and an instance (individual). Thus, while the object shares the same IRI, depending on its context, it is evaluated by an OWL reasoner as a different thing (class or individual). The OWL API achieves this by actually writing out the object in both its class view and individual view. Here is an example (in RDF/XML serialization):

Input OWL:

Output from Protégé with punning:

<!-- http://purl.org/ontology/Ape-->

<owl:Class rdf:about="http://purl.org/ontology/Ape"/>

<!-- http://purl.org/ontology/Ape-->

<owl:NamedIndividual rdf:about="http://purl.org/ontology/Ape">
   <isEndangered>Ape</isEndangered>
</owl:NamedIndividual>

Notice the duplicate definition (in RDF/XML) to the NamedIndividual. When writing out the ontology, all punned objects are duplicated in a similar manner.

The Beginning of the Transition

OWL 2 and its other general changes [12] have arrived in the nick of time. Not only were we seeing some of the weaknesses in OWL 1 that warranted updating, but we are also now being challenged with regard to how to make linked data and the many datasets in RDF effectively interoperate. Perhaps undecidability and throwing triples to the wind worked OK in the early days of our semantic Web Wild West. But now it is time for the new sheriff to bring order to the emerging chaos.

Of course only time will tell, but we believe the design decisions made by the OWL 2 working group were judicious and balanced ones to find that sweet spot between expressiveness and reasoning efficiency [9]. We also believe that, while useful in its less expressive form [2], that many new domain vocabularies based on SKOS would especially benefit from embracing the OWL 2 metamodeling techniques.

But two criticisms still remain. First, tooling support for OWL 2 and the OWL API is weak, as discussed in an earlier chapter. And, as the last chapter discussed, there are not enough practitioners that have yet taken up OWL 2, which means that best practice guidance and exemplars are still limited.

Lightweight domain ontologies can greatly benefit from these OWL 2 metamodeling techniques and the OWL RL alternative that also emerged as one of the OWL 2 profile enhancements [13]. Structured Dynamics thinks the growing scale and learning taking place around linked data and RDF datasets is now pointing the way to a necessary transition. And OWL 2 metamodeling should be one of the key components to making our semantic technologies more responsive and effective [14].

A Single-stop Assembly of Ontology Tips and Pointers

As we conclude this recent series on ontology tools and building [1], one item stands clear: the relative lack of guidance on how one actually builds and maintains these beasties. While there is much of a theoretic basis in the literature and on the Web, and much of methodologies and algorithms, there is surprisingly little on how one actually goes about creating an ontology.

An earlier posting pointed to the now classic Ontology Development 101 article as a good starting point [2]. Another really excellent starting point is the Protégé 4 user manual [3]. Though it is obviously geared to the Protégé tool and its interface, it also is an instructive tutorial on general ontology (OWL) topics and constructs. I highly recommend printing it out and reading it in full.

Learning by Example

Another way to learn more about ontology construction is to inspect some existing ontologies. Though one may use a variety of specialty search engines and Google to find ontologies [4], there are actually three curated services that are more useful and which I recommend.

The best, by far, is the repository created by the University of Manchester for the now-completed TONES project [5]. TONES has access to some 200+ vetted ontologies, plus a search and filtering facility that helps much in finding specific OWL constructs. It is a bit difficult to filter by OWL 2-compliant only ontologies (except for OWL 2 EL), but other than that, the access and use of the repository is very helpful. Another useful aspect is that the system is driven by the OWL API, a central feature that we recommended in the prior tools landscape posting. From a learning standpoint this site is helpful because you can filter by vocabulary.

An older, but similar, repository is OntoSelect. It is difficult to gauge how current this site is, but it nonetheless provides useful and filtered access to OWL ontologies as well.

These sources provide access to complete ontologies. Another way to learn about ontology construction is from a bottom-up perspective. In this regard, the Ontology Design Patterns (ODP) wiki is the definitive source [6]. This is certainly a more advanced resource, since its premise begins from the standpoint of modeling issues and patterns to address them, but the site is also backed by an active community and curated by leading academics. Besides ontology building patterns, ODP also has a listing of exemplary ontologies (though without the structural search and selection features of the sources above). ODP is not likely the first place to turn to and does not give “big picture” guidance, but it also should be a bookmarked reference once you begin real ontology development.

It is useful to start with fully constructed ontologies to begin to appreciate the scope involved with them. But, of course, how one gets to a full ontology is the real purpose of this post. For that purpose, let’s now turn our attention to general and then more specific best practices.

Sources of Best Practices

As noted above, there is a relative paucity of guidance or best practices regarding ontologies, their construction and their maintenance. However, that being said, there are some sources whereby guidance can be obtained.

To my knowledge, the most empirical listing of best practices comes from Simperl and Tempich [7]. In that 2006 paper they examined 34 ontology building efforts and commented on cost, effectiveness and methodology needs. It provides an organized listing of observed best practices, though much is also oriented to methodology. I think the items are still relevant, though they are now four to five years old. The paper also contains a good reference list.

Various collective ontology efforts also provide listings of principles or such, which also can be a source for general guidance. The OBO (The Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies) effort, for example, provides a listing of principles to which its constituent ontologies should adhere [8]. As guidance to what it considers an exemplary ontology, the ODP effort also has a useful organized listing of criteria or guidance.

One common guidance is to re-use existing ontologies and vocabularies as much as possible. This is a major emphasis of the OBO effort [9]. The NeOn methodology also suggests guidelines for building individual ontologies by re-use and re-engineering of other domain ontologies or knowledge resources [10]. Brian Sletten (among a slate of emerging projects) has also pointed to the use of the Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS) as a staging vocabulary to represent concept schema like thesauri, taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, and subject headers [11].

The Protégé manual [3] is also a source of good tips, especially with regard to naming conventions and the use of the editor. Lastly, the major source for the best practices below comes from Structured Dynamics‘ own internal documentation, now permanently archived. We are pleased to now consolidate this information in one place and to make it public.

General Best Practices

General best practices refer to how the ontology is scoped, designed and constructed. Note the governing perspective in this series has been on lightweight, domain ontologies.

Scope and Content

• Provide balanced coverage of the subject domain. The breadth and depth of the coverage in the ontology should be roughly equivalent across its scope
• Reuse structure and vocabularies as much as possible. This best practice refers to leveraging non-ontological content such as existing relational database schema, taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, MDM directories, industry specifications, and spreadsheets and informal lists. Practitioners within domains have been looking at the questions of relationships, structure, language and meaning for decades. Effort has already been expended to codify many of these understandings. Good practice therefore leverages these existing structural and vocabulary assets (of any nature), and relies on known design patterns
• Embed the domain coverage into a proper context. A major strength of ontologies is their potential ability to interoperate with other ontologies. Re-using existing and well-accepted vocabularies and including concepts in the subject ontology that aid such connections is good practice. The ontology should also have sufficient reference structure for guiding the assignment of what content “is about”
• Define clear predicates (also known as properties, relationships, attributes, edges or slots), including a precise definition. Then, when relating two things to one another, use care in actually assigning these properties. Initially, assignments should start with a logical taxonomic or categorization structure and expand from there into more nuanced predicates
• Ensure the relationships in the ontology are coherent. The essence of coherence is that it is a state of logical, consistent connections, a logical framework for integrating diverse elements in an intelligent way. So while context supplies a reference structure, coherence means that the structure makes sense. Is the hip bone connected to the thigh bone, or is the skeleton askew? Testing (see below) is a major aspect for meeting this best practice
• Map to external ontologies to increase the likelihood of sharing and interoperability. In Structured Dynamics’ case, we also attempt to map at minimum to the UMBEL subject reference structure for this purpose [13]
• Rely upon a set of core ontologies for external re-use purposes; Structured Dynamics tends to rely on a set of primary and secondary standard ontologies [14]. The corollary to this best practice is don’t link indiscriminantly.

Structure and Design

• Begin with a lightweight, domain ontology [15]. Ontologies built for the pragmatic purposes of setting context and aiding disparate data to interoperate tend to be lightweight with only a few predicates, such as isAbout, narrowerThan or broaderThan. But, if done properly, these lighter weight ontologies with more limited objectives can be surprisingly powerful in discovering connections and relationships. Moreover, they are a logical and doable intermediate step on the path to more demanding semantic analysis. Because we have this perspective, we also tend to rely heavily on the SKOS vocabulary for many of our ontology constructs [16]
• Try to structurally split domain concepts from instance records. Concepts represent the nodes within the structure of the ontology (also known as classes, subject concepts or the TBox). Instances represent the data that populates that structure (also known as named entities, individuals or the ABox) [17]. Trying to keep the ABox and TBox separate enables easier maintenance, better understandability of the ontology, and better scalability and incorporation of new data repositories
• Treat many concepts via “punning” as both classes and instances (that is, as either sets or members, depending on context). The “punning” technique enables “metamodeling,” such as treating something via its IRI as a set of members (such as Mammal being a set of all mammals) or as an instance (such as Endangered Mammal) when it is the object of a different contextual assertion. Use of “metamodeling” is often helpful to describe the overall conceptual structure of a domain. See endnote [18] for more discussion on this topic
• Build ontologies incrementally. Because good ontologies embrace the open world approach [19], working toward these desired end states can also be incremental. Thus, in the face of common budget or deadline constraints, it is possible initially to scope domains as smaller or to provide less coverage in depth or to use a small set of predicates, all the while still achieving productive use of the ontology. Then, over time, the scope can be expanded incrementally. Much value can be realized by starting small, being simple, and emphasizing the pragmatic. It is OK to make those connections that are doable and defensible today, while delaying until later the full scope of semantic complexities associated with complete data alignment
• Build modular ontologies that split your domain and problem space into logical clusters. Good ontology design, especially for larger projects, warrants a degree of modularity. An architecture of multiple ontologies often works together to isolate different work tasks so as to aid better ontology management. Also, try to use a core set of primitives to build up more complex parts. This is a kind of reuse within the same ontology, as opposed to reusing external ontologies and patterns. The corollary to this is: the same concepts are not created independently multiple times in different places in the ontology. Adhering to both of these practices tends to make ontology development akin to object-oriented programming
• Assign domains and ranges to your properties. Domains apply to the subject (the left hand side of a triple); ranges to the object (the right hand side of the triple). Domains and ranges should not be understood as actual constraints, but as axioms to be used by reasoners. In general, domain for a property is the range for its inverse and the range for a property is the domain of its inverse. Use of domains and ranges will assist testing (see below) and help ensure the coherency of your ontology
• Assign property restrictions, but do so sparingly and judiciously [20]. Use of property restrictions will assist testing (see below) and help ensure the coherency of your ontology
• Use disjoint classes to separate classes from one another where the logic makes sense and dictates (if not explicitly stated, they are assumed to overlap)
• Write the ontology in a machine-processable language such as OWL or RDF Schema (among others), and
• Aggressively use annotation properties (see next) to promote the usefulness and human readability of the ontology.

Naming and Vocabulary Best Practices

• Name all concepts as single nouns. Use CamelCase notation for these classes (that is, class names should start with a capital letter and not contain any spaces, such as MyNewConcept)
• Name all properties as verb senses (so that triples may be actually read); e.g., hasProperty. Try to use mixedCase notation for naming these predicates (that is, begin with lower case but still capitalize thereafter and don’t use spaces)
• Try to use common and descriptive prefixes and suffixes for related properties or classes (while they are just labels and their names have no inherent semantic meaning, it is still a useful way for humans to cluster and understand your vocabularies). For examples, properties about languages or tools might contain suffixes such as ‘Language‘ or ‘Tool‘ for all related properties
• Provide inverse properties where it makes sense, and adjust the verb senses in the predicates to accommodate. For example, <Father> <hasChild> <Janie> would be expressed inversely as <Janie> <isChildOf> <Father>
• Give all concepts and properties a definition. The matching and alignment of things is done on the basis of concepts (not simply labels) which means each concept must be defined [21]. Providing clear definitions (along with the coherency of its structure) gives an ontology its semantics. Remember not to confuse the label for a concept with its meaning. (This approach also aids multi-linguality). In its own ontologies, Structured Dynamics uses the property of skos:definition, though others such as rdfs:comment or dc:description are also commonly used
• Provide a preferred label annotation property that is used for human readable purposes and in user interfaces. For this purpose, Structured Dynamics uses the property of skos:prefLabel
• Include a class “SemSet”, which means a series of alternate labels and terms to describe the concept. These alternatives include true synonyms, but may also be more expansive and include jargon, slang, acronyms or alternative terms that usage suggests refers to the same concept. The umbel:SemSet construct enables a listing of individual members to be generated that provides the matching set for tagging and information extraction tasks. (As such, also include the prefLabel in the SemSet for proper lookup and tagging purposes.) The SemSet construct is similar to the “synsets” in Wordnet, but with a broader use understanding. This construct is an integral part of Structured Dynamics’ approach to using ontologies for information extraction and tagging of unstructured text
• Try to assign logical and short names to namespaces used for your vocabularies, such as foaf:XXX, umbel:XXX or skos:XXX, with a maximimum of five letters preferred
• Enable multi-lingual capabilities in all definitions and labels. This is a rather complicated best practice in its own right. For the time being, it means being attentive to the xml:lang=”en” (for English, in this case) property for all annotation properties
• (If you disagree with these naming conventions, use your own, but in any event, be consistent!!).

Documentation Best Practices

• Like good software programs, a properly constructed and commented ontology is the first requirement of best practice documentation
• The entire ontology vocabulary should be documented via a dedicated system that allows finding, selecting and editing of any and all ontology terms and their properties
• The methodologies should be documented for ontology construction and maintenance, including naming, selection, completeness and other criteria. Documents such as this one and others in this series provide examples of important supplementary documentation regarding methodology and practice
• Provide a complete TechWiki-like documentation system for use cases, best practices, evaluation and testing metrics, tools installation and use, and all aspects of the ontology lifecycle should be provided and supported [22]
• Develop a complete graph of the ontology and make it available via graph visualization tools to aid understanding of the ontology in its complete aspect [23], and
• Other ample diagrams and flowcharts should also be prepared and made available for knowledge workers’ use. UML diagrams, for example, might be included here, but general workflows and concept relationships should be explicated in any case through visual means. Such diagrams are much easier to understand and follow than the actual ontology specification.

Organizational and Collaborative Best Practices

• Collaboration is an implementation best practice [24]
• Re-use of already agreed-up structures and vocabularies respects prior investments and needs to be emphasized
• Improved processes for consensus making, including tools support, must be found to enable work groups to identify and decide upon terminology, definitions, alternative labels (SemSets), and relations between concepts. These processes need not be at the formal ontology level, but at the level of the concept graph underlying the ontology [24].

Testing Best Practices

• Test new concepts, aided by proper domain, range and property restrictions; by invoking reasoners such that inconsistencies can be determined [25]
• Test new properties, aided by invoking reasoners, which will identify inconsistencies [25]
• Test via external class assignments, by linking to classes in external ontologies, which acts to ‘explode the domain’ [26]
• Use external knowledge bases and ontologies, such as Cyc or UMBEL [27], to conduct coherency testing for the basic structure and relationships in the ontology
• Evolve the ontology specification to include necessary and sufficient conditions [25] aid more complete reasoner testing for consistency and coherence.

Best Practices for Adaptive Ontologies

In the case of ontology-driven applications using adaptive ontologies [28], there are also additional instructions contained in the system (via administrative ontologies) that tell the system which types of widgets need to be invoked for different data types and attributes. This is different from the standard conceptual schema, but is nonetheless essential to how such applications are designed.

• Use the structWSF middleware layer [29] as the abstract access point to:
• • To create, update, delete or otherwise manage data records
  • To browse or view existing records or record sets, based on simple to possible complex selection or filtering criteria, or
  • To take one of these results sets and progress it through various workflows involving specialized analysis, applications, or visualization.
• Supplement the domain ontology with a semantic component ontology for the purposes of guiding data widget display and visualization [30], and
• Supplement the domain ontology with the irON (instance record Object Notation) for dataset exchange and interoperability [31].

The administrative ontologies supporting these applications are managed differently than the standard domain ontologies that are the focus of most of the best practices above. Nonetheless, some of the domain ontology best practices work in tandem with them, the combination of which are called adaptive ontologies.