1 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. Vocabulary, Ontology & Specification Management at OMG Elisa Kendall Sandpiper Software Collaborative Expedition Workshop #63 July 18, 2007

2 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM) ODM is the OMG standard for model driven ontology development Adopted as an OMG standard in October 2006 Not one model, but a family of metamodels –Supports exchange of independently developed models –Provides standard profiles for ontology development in UML –Enables consistency checking and validation of models in general Grounded in formal logic enabling reasoning engines to understand, validate, and apply ontologies developed using the ODM Final Adopted Specification is publicly available from the OMG web site at http:// Finalization (FTF) is underway, with target completion of September 2007 (Jacksonville, FL meeting)

3 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. Platform Independent (Normative) Metamodels (PIMs) –RDF & OWL – abstract syntax, constraints for OWL DL & OWL Full, several compliance options –ISO Common Logic (CL) –ISO Topic Maps (TM) Informative Models –DL Core –Identifier (keys) model extension to UML for ER Mappings (MOF QVT) UML2 Profiles for RDFS, OWL, TM Collateral / Artifacts –XMI (ODM Specific) –Java APIs Model Driven Ontology Development: ODM

4 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. ODM Relationship to Other OMG Standards Ontology Definition Metamodel (ODM) BMI Semantics for Business Vocabularies & Rules (SBVR) BMI Production Rule Representation (PRR) (near finalization) Direct Mapping for OWL Formal Grounding (CL) Vocabulary in ODM Rules in PRR Mapping via W3C RIF Information Management Metamodel (IMM) (in process) Mappings Planned for ER, Logical DB, XML Schema, …

5 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. Increasing Challenge to Manage Myriad of Specifications & Artifacts The number of artifacts under development for publication & management at OMG is increasing dramatically due to –Calls for multiple metamodels (XMI) for many emerging standards (e.g., Information Management Metamodel, Business Process Modeling family) –Increasing number of domain specifications (Finance, Insurance – Property & Casualty, Healthcare, Government …) –Recent calls for RDF vocabularies & OWL ontologies, including native, ODM/XMI, and related model artifacts in a number of specifications Exacerbates an already unworkable approach to management of artifacts on OMGs web site Recent work by the OMG architecture board includes increased formality in –Naming & version management for specifications, related artifacts throughout adoption & revision process –Published acronyms for common use across specifications –New directory structure for specification, normative artifacts, test suites, related documentation, including clarity in namespace definition, version management, etc.

6 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. Related Issues Raised in W3C for Vocabulary Management Semantic Web Deployment work in progress to provide preliminary guidance & rules of thumb via WG note Use of URIs for naming – critical issues include –the URI space from which resource names are drawn –ownership –commitments made to the persistence of URIs –policies for allocating URIs within that space to the vocabulary developers/maintainers –rules for constructing URIs to be used as resource names Documentation Articulation of maintenance policies Version identification Authoritative publication of the vocabulary or ontology

7 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. What else is needed from a metadata & provenance perspective? It depends on the use case … For standards development – sandbox organization, semantically-enabled wikis, consistent record keeping (minutes, change logs, etc.) may be enough For public service – rich metadata including provenance (sources & authorship, dates, relevant web sites, etc.), for each definition (concepts & relations) in every ontology & KB may be required Who should provide this? Research funding is typically focused on technology and tools, not utility ontology development Based on what standards, methodology, review process? Who should publish & manage the ontologies – should it be the registration authority for ISO standards, NIST, NARA …?

8 Copyright ©2007 Sandpiper Software, Inc. Potential Applications for Ontology Range from describing the semantics of the OMG specification tree to assist in local navigation To reference vocabularies for use in search and navigation across public resources to increase responsiveness, robustness To use in applications where co-reference resolution across multilingual corpora might assist in disaster recovery To …