Ontological Engineering

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Title: PHI 598 / IE 500: Ontological Engineering (Online class), Spring 2018.

Registration:

Class#: 23854 (PHI)
Class#: 23450 (ENG)
Off-campus students: Registration details are provided under Part Time/Graduate here.

Instructor: Barry Smith

Office hours: By appointment via email at phismith@buffalo.edu

The Course

Goal: The aim of this 3-credit-hour course is to provide an introduction to the methods and uses of ontological engineering, focusing on applications in areas such as military intelligence, engineering, and document processing. It will provide an overview of how ontologies are created and used, together with practical experience in the development of ontologies and in the use of associated web technology standards. It will also address some of the human factors underlying the success and failure of ontology projects, including issues of ontology governance and dissemination.

Course Structure: This will be a three credit hour on-line graduate seminar. It will be taught through the medium of a series of 2-hour long videos incorporating presentation of powerpoint slides and question-answer sessions. The final session will be structured around youtube videos created by the students in the class.

Schedule: The link to the course video for any given week will be provided at 9am on the corresponding Sunday (as listed below). Students are required to watch the video within 48 hours of this posting and to send a ~200 word summary of the content of this video to Dr Smith before the end of this period. In addition they should post to the class email forum any questions and comments relating to the video from the relevant week. Examples of video lectures from previous courses are appended below.

Text: Robert Arp, Barry Smith and Andrew Spear, Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, August 2015.

Ontologies are an important tool in all areas where data is collected and described by different groups in different ways. Ontologies provide taxonomy-based computerized lexica used to describe diverse bodies of data. They thereby help to aggregate and compare data, to make data more easily discoverable, and to allow large bodies of data to be more effectively searched and analyzed. Ontologies also play an important role in the so-called Semantic Web, where the Web Ontology Language (OWL) forms a central building block in the stack of web technology standards created by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Ontology in Buffalo: UB ontologists are involved in a variety of national and international projects in the military, healthcare, bioscience, engineering, transport and financial domains. There is an acknowledged shortage of persons with ontological engineering expertise in all these fields, and in related fields such as journalism, manufacturing and government administration. UB ontologists also work closely with CUBRC, a Buffalo research, development, testing and systems integration company specializing in the areas of Data Science and Information Fusion; Chemical, Biological and Medical Sciences; and Aeronautics.

Schedule

January 28: Introduction to Ontology for Systems Engineering 1

February 4: Introduction to Ontology for Systems Engineering 2

February 11:

February 18:

February 25:

March 4:

March 11:

March 18:

March 25: Spring Recess

April 1:

April 8:

April 15:

April 22:

April 29:

May 6: Student presentations in video format

Provisional list of topics

1. Introduction to Ontology for Systems Engineering
2. Big Data and How to Overcome the Problems it Causes
3. Ontology, AI and Robotics
4. Services, Commodities, Infrastructure
5. Product Life Cycle Ontology
6. Ontology and Information Engineering in the Healthcare Domain
7. The Science of Document Informatics
8. Finance Ontology
9. The Ontology of Plans
10. Ontology of Military Logistics
11. Ontology and Intelligence Analysis
12. Ontology and Data Fusion
13. Ontology of Terrorism
14. Presentations of Student Projects 1
15. Presentations of Student Projects 2

Student Learning Outcomes

Program Outcomes/Competencies Instructional Method(s) Assessment Method(s)
The student will acquire a thorough knowledge of current ontology research in areas relating to engineering, data fusion, defense and intelligence Video lectures and online discussions Review of submitted online content and of participation in online discussion forum
The student will acquire experience in ontology development Video lectures and critique of successive drafts Review of results in the form of xsl spreadsheet or Protégé file
The student will acquire experience in communicating the results of work on ontology development Creation of youtube presentation and of associated documentation Review of results

Grading and Related Policies and Services

Grading will be based on two factors:

I: understanding and criticism of the videos presented in classes 1-13
All students are required to ingest the content of all videos and to take an active part in on-line discussions throughout the semester.
II: preparation of a youtube video and associated documentation (including powerpoint slides and essay).

Important dates:

Jan 28 - first video released by Dr Smith at 9am
Feb 20 - about now start to discuss by email the content of your video and essay with Dr Smith
Feb 28 - submit a proposed title and abstract
Mar 31 - submit a table of contents and 300 word summary plus draft of associated ppt slides
Apr 27 - submit penultimate draft of essay and powerpoint
May 5 - submit final version of essay and powerpoint and upload final version of video to youtube

Where the essay takes the form of the documentation of a specific ontology developed by the student it should include:

Statement of scope of the ontology
Summary of existing ontologies in the relevant domain
Explanation of how your ontology differs from (or incorporates) these ontologies
Screenshots of parts of the ontology with some examples of important terms and definitions
Summaries of potential applications of the ontology

Grading Policy Grading follows standard graduate policies (http://grad.buffalo.edu/Academics/Policies-Procedures/Grading-Procedures.html) Learning assessments will be graded based on rubric criteria and weighted according to the following breakdown:

Weighting Assignment

26% video summaries (2% per summary)
14% forum participation
20% youtube video
20% powerpoint slides
20% essay / ontology content


Orange Apple more
Bread Pie more
Butter Ice cream and more

Final Grades

Grade Quality Percentage
A 4.0 93.0% -100.00%
A- 3.67 90.0% - 92.9%
B+ 3.33 87.0% - 89.9%
B 3.00 83.0% - 86.9%
B- 2.67 80.0% - 82.9%
C+ 2.33 77.0% - 79.9%
C 2.00 73.0% - 76.9%
C- 1.67 70.0% - 72.9%
D+ 1.33 67.0% - 69.9%
D 1.00 60.0% - 66.9%
F 0 59.9% or below

An interim grade of Incomplete (I) may be assigned if the student has not completed all requirements for the course. An interim grade of 'I' shall not be assigned to a student who did not attend the course. The default grade accompanying an interim grade of 'I' shall be 'U' and will be displayed on the UB record as 'IU.' The default Unsatisfactory (U) grade shall become the permanent course grade of record if the 'IU' is not changed through formal notice by the instructor upon the student's completion of the course.

Assignment of an interim 'IU' is at the discretion of the instructor. A grade of 'IU' can be assigned only if successful completion of unfulfilled course requirements can result in a final grade better than the default 'U' grade. The student should have a passing average in the requirements already completed. The instructor shall provide the student specification, in writing, of the requirements to be fulfilled.

Academic integrity is a fundamental university value. Through the honest completion of academic work, students sustain the integrity of the university while facilitating the university's imperative for the transmission of knowledge and culture based upon the generation of new and innovative ideas. See http://grad.buffalo.edu/Academics/Policies-Procedures/Academic-Integrity.html.

Students may collaborate for the assignments in which case the submitted materials should be clearly labeled as such, with the names of all collaborating students. In case students who collaborate cannot come to a consensus for certain parts of the work, alternate solutions proposed by individual students should be clearly marked as such. Grading of individual students will take into account such alternatives.

Accessibility resources: If you have any disability which requires reasonable accommodations to enable you to participate in this course, please contact the Office of Accessibility Resources, 25 Capen Hall, 645-2608, and also the instructor of this course. The office will provide you with information and review appropriate arrangements for reasonable accommodations.

Sample videos

  • Ontology: A Brief Introduction
Slides
Video
  • Ontology: From Philosophy to Engineering
Slides
Video
  • Ontology as a Solution to the Problem of Data Integration
Slides
Video
  • Object Based Production (OBP): Use of Ontologies in Tracking Systems
Basics of Referent Tracking (RT)
Slides
Video
Referent Tracking and Video Surveillance
Slides
Video
Referent Tracking and Data Descriptions
Slides
Video
  • Military ontology
Slides1
Video1
Slides2
Video2
  • What is a document?
Slides
Video (to be edited)
  • Document Acts and the Ontology of Social Reality
Video
  • Ontology and the Semantic Web
Slides
Video

Preliminary Reading and Video Materials