Applying BFO to the labour market

[clarissa.feio]

Dear all,

I work in the labour market and I am trying to understand how to map the concepts of occupations, knowledge and skills to BFO.

The definitions are:

Occupations: a set of jobs whose main tasks are characterized by a high degree of similarity.

Knowledge: outcome of assimilation of information through learning. Information on the body of facts, principles, theories and practices hat is related to a field of work. 

Skills: the ability to apply knowledge and use know-how to complete tass and solve problems. Skills can be cognitive (the use of logical, intuitive and creative thinking) or practical (involving manual dexterity and the use of methods, materials, tools and instruments).

In our ontology, practically we are using the skils tree for occurrents (skills in performing tasks / activities such as cleaning, managing, diagnosing diseases, etc) and knowledge for continuants (knowledge of history, body of law, medicine, etc).

I would like to use BFO to make an ontological analysis of these three pillars of our ontology, but I am having quite a lot of difficulties.

Occupation: on one hand we can say that this an object aggregate, but we cannot say that an occupation is a material entity. It seems to me that this would be an immaterial object aggregate, if such a thing could exist?

Skill: this refers to not to the activities themselves, but to the skill in performing these activities, so I am not certain if this is an occurrent.

Also, I think that the relation that exists between knowledge and skills on one side, and occupations on the other side, is one of inherence, but I am cannot see how I can express thiswith BFO (unless I am wrong and this is not about inherence).

I would be very interested in hearing any thoughts on this.

Kind regards,

Clarissa.

[Pierre Grenon]

Hello Clarissa, 

this is really interesting, and not easy. Here are a few comments, I hope they are stimulating and not confusing but then feel free to follow up. 
Others on the list may have better suggestions, even might be in a position to point at existing treatments or publications in this area. 

You are asking about what is essentially a domain ontology either falling under BFO as an upper ontology or read out of BFO as a formal ontology. My main proposal is to say that the things you listed are dependent continuants of sort and to do justice to them you need to add to your ontology both independent continuants (for example, people) and occurrents (for example, performings of jobs) but these things are neither of those two just mentioned. I'm going to propose a typical OWL style approach to the knowledge representation too. An alternative way of doing it could be to say -- these things are all some sort of abstract objects and to make them the center of your ontology. The knowledge representation in that later case would be really more straightforward but it seems to me that it would be less close to the normal/standard interpretation of BFO as an upper level ontology, which may or may not be your concern though. 

See below, 
Pierre

On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 4:55 PM clarissa.feio <claris...@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear all,

I work in the labour market and I am trying to understand how to map the concepts of occupations, knowledge and skills to BFO.

The definitions are:

These are a little stuffy as definitions, perhaps it will help to streamline them according to the patterns: "A [X] is an [more general than X] that [specific to X but not all Ys]." If it helps, a little story to illustrate with examples could be used too. 

 

Occupations: a set of jobs whose main tasks are characterized by a high degree of similarity.

If you put it that way then the immediate question becomes "What's a job?". When you say 'set', it feels like you intend a form of abstraction. There may be two ways of going about this: occupations are job types or occupations are job ranges (so something a little bit more general than jobs). If you were working with a thesaurus or terminology, you'd say for a given job that it falls under the occupation. 

Here one alternative you want to consider is whether a) a specific job is a specialisation of an occupation or b) jobs and occupations are different and an instance of job is related somehow to an instance of occupation. 

The other thing that is missing to decide stuff like that is what do occupations belong to? People have an occupation -- you have to decide whether that's different or the same as an occupation. But in either case, having people in your ontology will help you sort things out, in the sense that this is how you will be able to tease out the meaning of the thing you may be more worried about (like occupations and knowledge and skills).  

Knowledge: outcome of assimilation of information through learning. Information on the body of facts, principles, theories and practices hat is related to a field of work. 

Well that's ambiguous. The first sentence tells us knowledge is something somewhere (a learner) that's the result of learning -- so that's something in the learner presumably. The second sentence tells us knowledge is something to be learnt, so is possibly in books. 

 

Skills: the ability to apply knowledge and use know-how to complete tass and solve problems. Skills can be cognitive (the use of logical, intuitive and creative thinking) or practical (involving manual dexterity and the use of methods, materials, tools and instruments).

So skills are presumably someone's. Can be used and reused but also possibly change (improve or deteriorate).  

 

In our ontology, practically we are using the skils tree for occurrents (skills in performing tasks / activities such as cleaning, managing, diagnosing diseases, etc) and knowledge for continuants (knowledge of history, body of law, medicine, etc).

This sounds like you have two taxonomies which are hierarchies of terms or concepts. This is something parallel but distinct from hierarchies of classes in an ontology which you may choose to label (or name) any way you want using the taxonomies.  

 

I would like to use BFO to make an ontological analysis of these three pillars of our ontology, but I am having quite a lot of difficulties.

Occupation: on one hand we can say that this an object aggregate, but we cannot say that an occupation is a material entity. It seems to me that this would be an immaterial object aggregate, if such a thing could exist?

In BFO, objects and aggregates thereof are essentially independent continuants. Would there be occupations without people? If yes, then that's an option. It seems counter intuitive to me and I would expect to see occupations being treated as some sort of 'dependent continuant'. Something that 'inheres' in people -- perhaps something that exists in the same way that 'roles' do -- being realised at different times in the life of people. It seems to me an option you have is to say that people have jobs and these jobs are 'determinate' occupations -- so essentially jobs and occupation are the same but occupations are more generic. 

The way this looks is:

Class: People (this is often not distinguished from human being but I'm using this label in your context)

Specialisation of: Independent_Continuant

Class: Occupation 
Specialisation of:  Specifically_Dependent_Continuant  (Realisable entity?)

Exemple

Bob instance_of People
Bobs_Occupation_123 instance_of HeadCook _Occupation

where 

Class: HeadCook 
Specialisation of: CookingAndCateging_Occupation

Class:  CookingAndCateging_Occupation
Specialisation of:  Occupation 

Skill: this refers to not to the activities themselves, but to the skill in performing these activities, so I am not certain if this is an occurrent.

Sounds like you are clear that this is something that will be in a relation with some activity but is not one. So skills are not occurrents. This too sounds like a (specifically) dependent continuant that would inhere in some person and is realised when a given activity is performed (by that person). 

Class: Skill
Specialisation of: Specifically_Dependent_Continuant (Quality? Realisable entity?)

BobsSkillInChoppingCarrots instance_of CarrotChopping_Skill

Class:  CarrotChopping_Skill
Specialisation of: CookingAndCateging_Skill

Class:  CookingAndCateging_Skill
Specialisation of:  Skill

Class: OccupationalActivity
Specialisation of: Occurrent (Process?)

BobsChoppingCarrotsOn20240424at6pmBST instance_of CarrotChopping_Activity

Class:  CarrotChopping_Activity
Specialisation of: CookingAndCatering_Activity

Class:   CookingAndCatering_Activity
Specialisation of: OccupationalActivity

In terms of relations: 

BobsSkillInChoppingCarrots inheres_in Bob  (you could want a specialisation: 'skill belongs to' or in inverse 'has skill')
BobsSkillInChoppingCarrots is_realised_in BobsChoppingCarrotsOn20240424at6pmBST

You could go further and in addition to stating that skills are realised in activities, you could choose to express something stronger that certain types of activities require certain types of skills, if that's something different. Technically, in BFO, this would be a relationship between two 'dependent continuants' -- you are allowed to add that. 
 

Also, I think that the relation that exists between knowledge and skills on one side, and occupations on the other side, is one of inherence, but I am cannot see how I can express thiswith BFO (unless I am wrong and this is not about inherence).

According to the above suggestion, that's not inherence in either case. Actually, you didn't say what you were thinking about Knowledge. I'm not sure, possibly there could be an argument that knowledge as you have it something like a generically dependent continuant (can be in a book, can be in your head, can be in your hands, so to speak). 

The relation between knowledge and skills is like just mentioned before something between two dependent continuants. You may have to invent it. It's something like 'knowledge contributes positively to / grounds to a skill'. 

The relation between knowledge and occupation is very similar, perhaps less direct? So if knowledge gives you a skill and a skill is an ability to perform activities that are considered to be parts of the performing of a job or by extension performing of an occupation (if the phrase makes sense), then the relation between knowledge and occupation is that knowledge gives you skills to perform your occupation. 

I confess that at this stage, I'm not clear what the difference is between knowledge and skill but let's assume one is something you have in actuality and the other is something that you have potentially, although not sure that's even clear.

With something like the above approach, you would be able to describe people having occupations, knowledge and skills. It would be less straightforward to describe occupations, knowledge and skills in detail. For example, if you wanted to treat degrees of proficiencies (to which level is the skill had) or fitness (to which level the job requires a skill), it might become a little convoluted. It's simpler however if you take a more detached approach to the knowledge representation language where you can both instantiate, say a skill, but also describe that instantiated thing (a universal) as an individual ( CarrotChopping_Skill becomes an instance_of SkillType, for example).

I wonder if, as a next step, it would be possible to propose new formulations of your definitions. 

It would be really interesting to see where your thoughts are going, keep us posted. 

I would be very interested in hearing any thoughts on this.

Kind regards,

Clarissa.

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[Jie Zheng]

Hi Clarissa,

We have developed Occupation Ontology (OccO) based on BFO. In OccO, we defined occupation, skill, and occupation activity and aligned with BFO. You can find several OccO publications on the website: https://github.com/Occupation-Ontology/OccO. The latest one "The Occupation Ontology (OccO): Building a Bridge between Global Occupational Standards." have the model and details of the concepts you are interested in.

In addition, OccO developers have weekly meetings at 2:00 PM EST on Friday. I can share the meeting link with you if you are interested in attending the occupation discussion.

Best regards,

Jie

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[Ludger Jansen]

Dear Clarissa,

some quick thoughts below:

Occupations: a set of jobs whose main tasks are characterized by a high degree of similarity.

Most certainly not. (Mathematical) sets are abstract objects that exists outside of time and space. You probably are not going to argue for the transcendental nature of occupations. And similarity is very vague (even if it comes with a high degree of similarity). So it is probably not sufficient for individuating occupations. Neither will it be sufficient, as there are occupations that come with quite different "jobs" (whatever you mean by this). A building contractor will need to buid houses, but also to write bills etc.

Knowledge: outcome of assimilation of information through learning. Information on the body of facts, principles, theories and practices hat is related to a field of work. 

Related to a field of work? Isn't there knowledge that is not related to a field of work? Seems to import the domain of application into the definition of a much wider class.

Skills: the ability to apply knowledge and use know-how to complete tass and solve problems. Skills can be cognitive (the use of logical, intuitive and creative thinking) or practical (involving manual dexterity and the use of methods, materials, tools and instruments).

... ability to ... use know-how? Isn't know how a skill? Are skills always focussed on problem solving? Doubt it.

In our ontology, practically we are using the skils tree for occurrents (skills in performing tasks / activities such as cleaning, managing, diagnosing diseases, etc) and knowledge for continuants (knowledge of history, body of law, medicine, etc).

I would like to use BFO to make an ontological analysis of these three pillars of our ontology, but I am having quite a lot of difficulties.

Occupation: on one hand we can say that this an object aggregate, but we cannot say that an occupation is a material entity. It seems to me that this would be an immaterial object aggregate, if such a thing could exist?

There are no immaterial aggregates of material objects. But there are roles, plans, rights and duties, ... All of these, I would guess, are possible candidates for the genus of occupation. Take your pick c:

Skill: this refers to not to the activities themselves, but to the skill in performing these activities, so I am not certain if this is an occurrent.

Certainly not. First, if you have a skill, you have it wholly whenever you have it. Second,  you can have a skill without exercising it.

Skills should go under BFO:Dispositions.

Also, I think that the relation that exists between knowledge and skills on one side, and occupations on the other side, is one of inherence, but I am cannot see how I can express thiswith BFO (unless I am wrong and this is not about inherence).

Yes, this is wrong. Skills and knowledge inheres in people, who also bear certain roles (here: occupations). Standardly, dependent entities inhere in material entities, and occupations are no material entities.

Will be happy to discuss this in more detail

Best
Ludger

I would be very interested in hearing any thoughts on this.

Kind regards,

Clarissa.

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