Evaluation Activities

Background reading on ontology evaluation:

See Articles

Evaluation

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We have to have some criteria based on which an evaluative statement about an ontology is produced, otherwise it might be labeled as a 'biased' opinion. Also, if we say every-ontology is good (which they certainly arent) that’s not productive either.

[Barry's suggestions]

Does it have a clear name?

Does it have clear documentation?

Does it have a clear subject matter?

Are its assertions universally true

   (e.g. if it says A part_of B then is it true of all instances of A that they are part of some instance of B)?

Is it used by other independent groups?

[Nigam's suggestions]

There are four main axes on which an ontology ought to be reviewed:

1 - extent to which it satisfies the purpose for which it was built

2 - ability to express what a user might want to express (use case tests)

3 - ease with which one can express non-sense while using it (i.e. take a few hundred use case instances and see how many were actually meaningful)

[2 and 3 will be at odds with each other much like sensitivity and specificity]

4 - consistency checking (i.e. is the ontology formally consistent)

[Barry's input on 4]

These are two related questions: are there tools/methodology for checking? what is the result of such checking? (and if no tools, what is the result of a quick manual check?)