Ontology best practices -- concepts, attributes, relationship types

[Ruth Kaufman]

Hello everyone.

I'm working on an ontology project -- designing a baseline ontology describing a business domain. The source content is being gleaned from a series of presentations and info graphics.

So far, some design patterns have emerged to distinguish between concepts, attributes of concepts, relationships among concepts, and attributes of relationships. However, the implied patterns are not being applied consistently across the ontology. 

Does anyone have any resource recommendations for ontology design best practices -- specifically answering these questions:

a) when to build an association as an attribute -- e.g., freeform text v. boolean v. pick list sourced from another concept

b) when to build an association as a relationship (in a mapping table, so to speak, rather than as a metadata attribute -- I recognize this might be a tool-specific question, but I'm not 100% sure)

c) what make for good relationship type names -- e.g., is_a_part_of v. has_part; is_subordinate_to v. type_of

d) is it common to apply attributes to relationship types? e.g., A depends on B, where an attribute of 'depends' could be 'degree' with values: critically, partially, minimally... (an example for illustration purposes only)

I have some opinions here, but it would really help if I could point to an external reference. Please let me know if you can think of anything that would be targeted to these considerations.

Many thanks!

Ruth

[Lisa Welchman]

HI Ruth,

Did you dig through the archive at Taxonomy Strategies? http://www.taxonomystrategies.com/html/archive.htm  Lots of good stuff there.

It seems like the sort of problem Joe Busch would has tackeld time and time again. I've worked with Joe a lot over the years and these concerns come up often. He may have written on it.

Hope this is at least sort of helpful.

Lisa

[Mary Slepicka]

Ok

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[Matt Moore]

I would ask this question on the Taxocop Yahoo group - it's a regular haunt of ontologists.

[Eddie VanArsdall]

Hi Ruth,

For answers to the kind of questions you're asking, I highly recommend The Accidental Taxonomist by Heather Hedden. The book clearly and thoroughly covers all of the aspects of taxonomy building. It distinguishes when you might need to use one solution over another.

Best Regards,

Eddie

Eddie VanArsdall

evana...@gmail.com

Content Insomnia

[Ruth Kaufman]

Thanks to all who have replied for the recommendations. I haven't had a chance yet to investigate them all, but I really appreciate the quality responses so far. 

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