Towards a Common Ontology for Personal Data Interoperability ~ Or just a Pipe Dream?

Towards a Common Ontology for Personal Data Interoperability

Tuesday 4G Convener: Julian Ranger

Notes-taker(s): Julian Ranger

Tags for the session - technology discussed/ideas considered:

Discussion notes, key understandings, outstanding questions, observations, and, if appropriate to this discussion: action items, next steps:  

1. Agreed that Common Ontology was an ideal to make task easier for all, though was not a necessary requirement in that systems can cope with multiple ontologies if needed.
2. Found it amusing that in talking about a single ontology there was no agreement about whether we were talking about an ontology, a schema, a data dictionary or other term!
   1. Did agree that it was about entity names & syntax whatever we call the aggregation
3. Should it be a single ontology, multiple ontologies, separate or overlapping, by community?
   1. Agreed looking for minimum possible
   2. Today big companies have leverage forcing all to use their ontologies, which results in many variants needing to be implemented - would like to reduce towards one for personal data exchange/use
4. In looking at a common ontology:
   1. Need to be pragmatic vis perfective
   2. There will be a fuzzy boundary around a core ontology where items cannot be resolved - need to live with that provided the level of fuzziness is not too high
5. A discussion on whether it was possible to create a single ontology concluded that it would be - after all many companies do this internally as they have to
6. Agreed should have a further Part 2 session at this IIW to explore what it would take to create a single ontology (or minimum set) - the What & How.  Points to note:
   1. Look at use cases and solve for those first
   2. Look at other ontology standardization examples and why they failed or succeeded
   3. Discuss "Data to Value" maps
7. In terms of timing agreed it is never too late, but best economic value is to do earlier whilst personal data exchange from/by people is in nascent stage