Odp:WhatIsAPattern
From Odp
This page contains some useful links for the newbie at ODP and ontologies in general. Consider that these are just suggestions where to start, and we do not intend this to be a comprehensive and complete collection.
What is an ontology?
There are many views on this subject, and numerous definitions. We will not tell you which one to use, but here are some useful links to start forming your own opinion and finding more information:
- The Wikipedia entry of Computer Science ontologies.
- The semanticweb.org explanation of ontology.
- KR ontologies according to Sowa.
- The Gruber view of ontologies, from 1992.
What is a pattern?
Patterns are used in many areas as "templates" or abstract descriptions encoding best practices of some field. The introduction of patterns in computer science is generally attributed to inspiration taken from the architecture field and Christopher Alexander. Software patterns are probably most well known as Design Patterns, as in the GoF book from 1995. Other patterns include data model patterns, linguistic patterns, knowledge patterns and many more.
What is an ODP?
An ontology design pattern is a reusable successful solution to a recurrent modeling problem
ODPs have been described in many papers and also in deliverables of the NeOn project. Below is a short "reading list":
Gangemi A., Presutti V. Ontology Design Patterns, in Staab S. et al. (eds.): Handbook of Ontologies (2nd edition), Springer, 2009.
Scharffe F. Correspondence Patterns Representation. François Scharffe. PhD. thesis, University of Innsbruck, 2009
Blomqvist E., Gangemi A., Presutti V. Experiments in Pattern-based Ontology Design, Proceedings of KCAP09, Los Angeles, ACM Press, 2009
Svab-Zamazal O., Svatek V., David J., Scharffe F. Towards metamorphic semantic models
Presutti V., Gangemi A. Content Ontology Design Patterns as practical building blocks for web ontologies. In Spaccapietra S. et al. (eds.): Proceedings of ER2008, Barcelona, Spain, 2008
Gangemi A. Design Patterns for Legal Ontology Construction. In P. Casanovas, P. Noriega, D. Bourcier, F. Galindo (eds.): Trends in Legal Knowledge: The Semantic Web and the Regulation of Electronic Social Systems,European Press Academic Publ. 2007
Gangemi A., Presutti V. Ontology Design for Interaction in a Reasonable Enterprise, P.Rittgen (ed.): Handbook of Ontologies for Business Interaction, IGI, 2007
Vrandecic D., Gangemi A., Unit Tests for Ontologies, M. Jarrar (ed.) Proceedings of OnToContent, OTM Conference, Montpellier, Springer, 2006
Gangemi A. Ontology Design Patterns for Semantic Web Content. M. Musen et al. (eds.): Proceedings of the Fourth International Semantic Web Conference, Springer, 2005
