Whereas the word "ontology" refers in philosophy to existence, in the context of information science it refers to a set of concept definitions. The 2004 Digital Government Conference white paper called "International Collaboration in eGovernment Research" uses the concept in describing the EU project "QUALEG" ("Quality of Service and Legitimacy in eGovernment"), a multi-institution initiative to improve the delivery of government services by integrating documents written in several European languages and combining different legacy software: "In the context of Digital Government, ontologies play an increasingly important role, as database metadata schemas, terminology standardization structures and the foundation for interfaces between applications. Yet the complexity and cost of building ontologies remains a daunting challenge." One project team within the project will provide a "starter" ontology that a machine can learn from, while a second team is creating software called "OntoBuilder" to provide a heuristic front-end through which users can input terms through which a topic-specific ontology can learn and become more accurate.
posted by Marcus Zillman |
4:15 AM
