Enterprise Project: The Enterprise Ontology

    STATUS:

    • A revised version (1.1) of the natural language description of the Enterprise Ontology is now available. This served as a specification for a subsequent formal encoding in Ontolingua. The code was produced using the Ontology Editor at Stanford Univertiy's Knowledge Systems Laboratory. Read about our experiences using Ontoloingua and KSL services.

      PAPERS:

      • M. Uschold, M. King, S. Moralee and Y. Zorgios (1995) The Enterprise Ontology

        Abstract:

        This document presents the Enterprise Ontology, a collection of terms and definitions relevant to business enterprises. It was developed as part of the Enterprise Project, a collaborative effort to provide a framework for enterprise modelling. The Enterprise Ontology will serve as a basis for this framework which includes methods and a computer toolset for enterprise modelling.

        We give an overview of the Enterprise Project, elaborate on the intended use of the Ontology, and discuss the process we went through to build it. The scope of the Enterprise Ontology is limited to those core concepts required for the project, however it is expected that it will appeal to a wider audience. It should not be considered static; during the course of the project, the Enterprise Ontology will be further refined and extended.

      • Mike Uschold & Michael Gruninger (1996) Ontologies: Principles, Methods and Applications Knowledge Engineering Review; Volume 11 Number 2, June 1996
        Also available from AIAI as AIAI-TR-191.

        Abstract:

        This paper is intended to serve as a comprehensive introduction to the emerging field concerned with the design and use of ontologies. We observe that disparate backgrounds, languages, tools, and techniques are a major barrier to effective communication among people, organisations, and/or software systems. We show how the development and implementation of an explicit account of a shared understanding (i.e. an `ontology') in a given subject area, can improve such communication, which in turn, can give rise to greater reuse and sharing, inter-operability, and more reliable software.

        After motivating their need, we clarify just what ontologies are and what purposes they serve. We outline a methodology for developing and evaluating ontologies, first discussing informal techniques, concerning such issues as scoping, handling ambiguity, reaching agreement and producing definitions. We then consider the benefits of and describe, a more formal approach. We re-visit the scoping phase, and discuss the role of formal languages and techniques in the specification, implementation and evaluation of ontologies. Finally, we review the state of the art and practice in this emerging field, considering various case studies, software tools for ontology development, key research issues and future prospects.

      • Mike Uschold (1996) Converting an Informal Ontology into Ontolingua: Some Experiences (available from AIAI as AIAI-TR-192)

        A slightly abridged version of this paper appears
        in the Proceedings of the Workshop on Ontological Engineering
        to be held in conjunction with ECAI 96 in Budapest.

        Abstract:

        We report our experiences of converting a carefully defined informal ontology expressed in natural language into the formal language: Ontolingua. The objectives of this paper are 1) to explore some of the nitty gritty details of formalising ontology definitions and 2) to serve as a basis for clarifying the relationship between this and other approaches to ontology construction (e.g. using competency questions), for the eventual aim of producing a comprehensive methodology.

        We first discuss concepts in the meta-ontology, including entities, classes, instances, relationships, roles, sets and states of affairs. With respect to roles, we define a special meta-class to classify objects whose existence necessarily depends on their being in a relationship with some other entity (e.g a customer). We describe a mechanism for classifying states of affairs which can be used to restrict what can be in certain relationships (e.g pre-condition).

        We then note some general issues that arise when producing formal definitions of the main terms; e.g. representing terms from a difference perspective, and identifying when and how new terms must be introduced. The need for new terms arises not only to fill gaps, but also to make explicit facts and logical dependencies that were only implied by the text definitions.

      • Mike Uschold & Martin King (1995) Towards a Methodology for Building Ontologies (available from AIAI as AIAI-TR-183)

        Presented at Workshop on Basic Ontological Issues in Knowledge Sharing
        Held in conjunction with IJCAI-95 in Montreal.

        Abstract:

        We outline some requirements for a comprehensive methodology for building ontologies, and review some important work that has been done in the area which could contribute to this goal. We describe our own experiences in constructing a significant ontology, emphasising the ontology capture phase.

        We first consider the very general issue of categorisation in modelling, and relate it to the process of ontology capture. We then describe the procedure that we used to identify the terms and produce definitions. We describe a successful way to handle ambiguous terms, which can be an enormous obstacle to reaching a shared understanding. Other important findings include: it may not be necessary to identify competency questions before building the ontology; the meta-ontology can be chosen after detailed text definitions are produced; defining terms which are 'cognitively basic' first can lead to less re-work.

      Contact Mike Uschold for further information.
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