Reviews:BenedictoRodriguezCastro about Template Instance

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BenedictoRodriguezCastro about Template Instance (Revision ID: Instance?oldid=11158 11158)

Overall suggestion (score): 0 - needs major revision

Review Summary: This pattern describes how to reify a reoccurring set of instances in a given ontology model. The pattern allows to minimize the number of times that the reoccurring instances need to be instantiated in the ontology model by creating the notion of an "instance template".

Reviewer Confidence: High. The pattern is given only in abstract terms. It is applicable to any domain. Domain-specific knowledge is not needed.

Problems: The description of the pattern in abstract terms appears as a very insteresting optimization to avoid the unnecessary repetition of a set of instances that occur multiple times in the ontology model. In that sense, it is a very useful and practical modelling idiom.

On the other hand, there are some aspects that hinders the applicability and understandability of the pattern, such as: (a) lack of a concrete example of the pattern supported by a corresponding graphical representation (b) the reusable building block in OWL provided contains only the annotation property mentioned in the pattern (c) the examples OWL files also refer to the implementation of the pattern in abstract terms (d) the known uses provided simply point to the landing website of two medical classifications but it is not clear how the pattern is actually used by these classification resources.

Therefore, because of the reasons above, I would recommend to provide a major revision of the pattern to address them.

Community Relevance: Upfront, the modelling scenario addressed comes accross as very likely to occur and therefore the pattern can be very relevant to the community.

Relation to Best Practices:

Reusability: Provided the missing information outlined throughout the review is given, the pattern can be highly reusable.

Relations to Other Patterns: The relation to the "Literal Reification" pattern (http://ontologydesignpatterns.org/wiki/Submissions:Literal_Reification) given by the authors seems appropriate.

Overall Understandability: There is opportunity to improve the understandability by providing a concrete example of the pattern in addition to the abstract one.

Clear Problem Description: The problem can be also better characterized by giving a clear real world example of the modelling problem addresed.

Clear Relevance and Consequences:

Clear Figures and Illustrations: The illustrations provided are very helpful. But again, lack of illustrations of a concrete example are missing.

Missing Information: In addition to the various issues mentioned throughout the review, the authors refer to the notion of "immutable" to mark the "template instance" via an annotation property. This is a very interesting aspect of the pattern and ideally it would be great if it could be discussed in greater detail, for example, how could this aspect of the pattern be conveyed to potential third-party consumer applications of the ontology?