Description
At the February 9th meeting of the Reference Information Model subcommittee, the members discussed the following topics:
1. TOPIC : What are some interesting aspects and uses of “competency questions” for our model development ? (Answer: Jeff suggested that competency questions, i.e. questions that you hope your model will help you answer, can be used to guide the development and limit the scope of a model. The questions, and consequently the resulting model, can be quite different depending on the perspective of the target audience, for example is our reference model intended to support standard developers and/or emergency managers or others. Also some types of questions can be answered from an abstract model and others require concrete instances. Revisiting competency questions for our model may be helpful as we build it out. )
2. TOPIC: What is the status of our model development? (Answer: Rex is doing an impressive job of working through our standards and representing them in various formats, including a logical model using Enterprise Architect, an ontology viewable in tools like Protege, and UML. He's included CAP and DE and is now working on a version 7 that includes RM. Rex will post his version 7 when complete for our review and consideration. Rex's work is a major contribution to our model development. )
3. TOPIC: What is the status of the DE 2.0? (Answer: The DE 2.0 public review is complete, comments have been received, and the process of working through each one is beginning. After changes have been made, a red-lined version is made available for a public review of 15 days limited to the changes. )
4. TOPIC: For the ontology representation of our model, how do we best address the aggregation (part-of) hierarchy vice the subclass (type-of) hierarchy? (Answer: A typical XML Schema hierarchy represents an aggregation part-of relationship whereas the Web Ontology Language hierarchy view represents a subclass type-of relationship. The members discussed the differences and the implications and potential confusion when creating ontology subclasses. The familiar aggregation hierarchy isn't always readily apparent in the ontology. Jeff will prepare a DE 2.0-based ontology to motivate further consideration of this issue.)
