Determining Fitness-For-Use of Ontologies Through Change Management, Versioning and Publication Best Practices

Abstract:

There is a large and growing number of domain ontologies available for researchers to leverage in their applications. When evaluating the use of an ontology it is important to not only consider whether the concepts and relationships defined in the ontology meet the requirements for purpose of use, but also how the change management, versioning and publication practices followed by the ontology publishers affect the maturity, stability, and long-term fitness-for-use of the ontology.

In this presentation we share our experiences and a list of best practices we have developed when determining fitness for use of existing ontologies, and the process we follow when developing of our own ontologies and extensions to existing ontologies. Our experience covers domains such as solar terrestrial physics, geophysics and oceanography; and the use of general purpose ontologies such as those with representations of people, organizations, data catalogs, observations and measurements and provenance. We will cover how we determine ontology scope, manage ontology change, specify ontology version, and what best practices we follow for ontology publication and use. The implications of following these best practices is that the ontologies we use and develop are mature, stable, have a well-defined scope, and are published in accordance with linked data principles.

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