Draft paper for presentation at:
Workshop on Spatial and Geographic Ontologies on 23rd September, 2003 (prior to COSIT'03)
Talking in COADs: A New Ontological Framework for
Discussing Interoperability of Spatial Information Systems
Andrew G. Turk1 and David M. Mark2
1 School of Information Technology, Murdoch University,
Perth, Western Australia 6150, Australia
Email: a.turk@murdoch.edu.au
2 Department of Geography,
National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, and
Center for Cognitive Science
University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14261, USA
Email: dmark@geog.buffalo.edu
Abstract:
This paper introduces a new ontological framework based on a system of
Conceptualizations of a Domain (COADs) which may aid the development
of theories and techniques to facilitate the interoperability of Spatial
Information Systems. The need for this framework, the basis of the
COADs, and an example are discussed. It is hoped that this will aid in
discussion of the need for a way of dealing with terminology related to
ontology in a manner with facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration and is
not restricted to any particular philosophical tradition or worldview.
Keywords: Spatial Information Systems, interoperability, ontology,
landscape categories, conceptualizations, language,
ethnophysiography, geographic information systems.
Introduction:
Spatial Information Systems (SIS) (including Land and Geographic Information
Systems) store a wide variety of types of geospatial information at different scales.
They play a vital role in both developed and developing nations in diverse fields, such
as: urban and regional planning; environmental management; business analysis; military
and security operations; property cadastres; epidemiological studies; and vehicle
navigation. More complex SISs share the characteristic that their databases are
constructed from a variety of sources, including other SISs. Increasingly, there is also a
need for SIS to interact with each other, often in an automated fashion, for analysis of
interdisciplinary data sets (Gaffney et al., 1996), for projects in cross-border regions,
etc.. Hence, facilitating the interoperability of SIS is of great practical importance.
The study of SIS interoperability must be founded in the nature of physical reality, the
way aspects of reality are selected for encoding in SIS, the taxonomies/categorizations
(feature/attribute catalogues) and data format standards utilized, and the way
information is stored in the databases (conceptual data models). Thus, questions of
Paper by Turk and Mark for Pre-COSIT Workshop on Spatial and Geographic Ontologies, 23rd September, 2003 page
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ontology and epistemology are central to the development of enhanced SIS
interoperability (Kuhn, 2001; Mark et al., in press; Mark et al., 2003; Smith and Mark,
2003; Winter, 2001). However, research and development in this field is difficult
because it requires collaboration between a large number of disciplines including:
information systems; computer science; geography; cognitive science, linguistics, and
philosophy.
When one takes seriously the need to recognize different worldviews (e.g. of Indigenous
peoples) and the need for a participative information system development methodology
(Remenyi, et al., 1997; Turk and Trees, 2000; Wilson, 1998), then the discipline of
ethnography needs to be added. In order to develop improved theories and practical
techniques of SIS interoperability, it is necessary for the interdisciplinary debate to
operate within a reasonable agreement on the meaning of the fundamental terms:
"ontology" and "epistemology". However, these meanings are often disputed.
Ontology, in its long-established philosophical sense, seeks to identify the constituents
of reality. However, philosophers from different traditions have alternative explanations
of what constitutes reality and how it may be known and categorized. Are 'meanings' in
the world or in people's heads? Is ontology about reality or concepts? Is it meaningful to
talk about multiple ontologies or is there only the (big O) Ontology? Are ontologies
strictly about (physical) reality (truth) or can they include 'mere' beliefs? Do ontologies
consist of words or thoughts, or both? Where does 'ontology' finish and 'epistemology'
start, or do they overlap? (Mark et al., 2003).
In its more recent information systems sense, an ontology is a logical theory that
provides "an explicit, partial account of a conceptualization" (Guarino and Giaretta,
1995, p. 32). The ontology stipulates the taxonomy that forms the basis of a data
dictionary used in building an information system. Geographic entities and their
categories may differ in kind from entities and categories in other domains. Geographic
entities are not simply large versions of their counterparts at smaller scales: "geographic
objects are not merely located in space, but are tied intrinsically to space in a manner
that implies that they inherit from space many of its structural (mereological,
topological, geometrical) properties" (Smith and Mark, 1998, p. 592). For an
ethnographer, it is important that the meanings adopted for the terms 'ontology' and
'epistemology' are coherent with the worldview of a particular speech community
(cultural group) (Watson-Verran and Turnbull, 1995).
Ethnophysiography:
The authors have been working on these issues in the context of ethnophysiography
(Mark and Turk, 2003) as part of a study asking questions such as: Do all people, and all
peoples, think about the landscape and its elements in more or less the same way? Or
are there significant cross-cultural and cross-linguistic differences in the ways human
beings perceive and cognize their environments at geographic or landscape scales? How
important is the nature of the particular landscape that provides the environment for a
speech community, and especially the range of forms in that landscape, in the
development of the category system and lexicon used by a speech community? How
influential is the culture and lifestyle of the people, that is, the nature of human
interaction with the landscape? How influential is the nature of the language itself, its
grammar and lexicon? A more detailed treatment of ethnophysiography is provided in
our companion paper for this workshop.
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In our development of the basis of ethnophysiography, and especially in our interaction
with other researchers in the field of SIS interoperability, it has become clear that
scholarly communication is being inhibited by the lack of a common agreed
terminological basis for the interdisciplinary discussion of ontology, in the context of
geospatial information. Redefining existing terms and convincing others to adopt such
definitions seems futile. This need led us to the development of a new framework of
'Conceptualizations of a Domain (COADs)'. By "domain" we mean some particular
aspects of reality, which we are interested in studying (e.g. for incorporation into a SIS),
such as the landforms within a particular geographic region. The definition of a fairly
large number of COADs, with somewhat complicated names, is done deliberately in an
attempt to obtain relatively unambiguous COADs, potentially allowing debates to focus
on substance rather than on terminology. The COADs approach is suggested as a
possible mechanism for facilitating more effective discussion of issues fundamental to
the development of enhanced interoperability of SIS, in a social as well as a technical
context.
COADs:
In order to overcome the difficulties associated with alternative definitions of the term
'ontology', we have decided to suggest a new way of categorizing the ways of thinking
about a domain of interest - via a set of COADs. These COADs can be considered
within a hierarchy, related to the way they are developed and used within a speech
community. It is hoped that this ontological framework will assist in the discussion of
the way information is generated and stored by people as well as computers, and hence
facilitate development of techniques of SIS interoperability.
We propose a framework which includes all conceptualizations (or definitions and
sources of categories), as understood by people as part of common sense knowledge,
and as held by scientists and knowledge workers of various types. We postulate various
levels of existence or awareness or knowledge of the world, held by various agents - i.e.
there are different ontologies and epistemologies. Categories (types or classes) might
be in the world, in the mind, in the culture, in the language, or in an information system.
The framework of COADS has been developed to aid in discussion of how a speech
community may categorize key aspects of their environment and how an information
system developer may work with them in order to develop a SIS which faithfully
captures their worldview. By looking at COADs it may assist in revealing gaps or
redundancies in knowledge schema (or a data dictionary). The initial set of COADs is
as follows:
O-COAD: Categories in the World
The intent here is for this level of the hierarchy to capture the
philosophical idea that there is an ontology of what actually exists in the
world, completely free of any human thought processes - the categories
inherent in what exists (with special reference, in the research context, to
geographical landforms). It corresponds with what some authors have
termed the (big O) Ontology. Prime examples would be so-called natural
kinds, if they exist (see Keil, 1989). Realist perspectives place a strong
emphasis on O-COADs whereas some competing philosophical stances
would deny their existence.
X-COAD: Categories in the Human Environment
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These categorizations would arise directly and sub-consciously in
humans through their perceptual interactions with physical reality (à la
Gibson, 1979). They relate to the affordances provided by aspects of
reality, in the context of the way human bodies and minds operate.
P-COAD: Categories in one Mind
Here we are considering the way any particular person categorizes the
domain of interest - the categories they have developed through their
lived experience, including their interaction with other individuals.
G-COAD: Shared Categories within a Group
Members of a group will share some common conceptualizations of any
given domain of interest, through the commonality of their direct
interaction with that domain and through their interactions with each
other, especially their communication through spoken and/or written
language.
U-COAD: Human categorization Universals
It is considered at least theoretically possible that the super-set of all
groups of humans may share some categorizations of any particular
domain of interest - so called "universals". These may only exist at a
fundamental level, as "primes" (Wierzbicka, 1996), or possibly not at all.
L-COAD: Categories Embodied in the Words of a Language
To the extent that members of a language group share conceptualizations
of some domain, these may be embodied in words within their language.
The formation of the language can be expected to have been driven by
aspects of the world experienced by its first speakers (as well as by
chance) and the conceptualizations of later speakers will be determined,
to some extent, by the characteristics of the language itself - its grammar
and lexicon.
E-COAD: Categories resulting from an Ethnographic study
In order to understand the categories shared by a language group, an
ethnographer must study the language itself and observe and record the
ways that members of that group use words in their everyday
comminication and interaction with the domain of interest (e.g. the way
they describe landscape features to each other as an aid to navigation
through their 'country'). The results of such studies must be recorded in
an explicit and formal manner if they are to be utilized effectively for
inter-cultural information exchange or the development of a SIS.
IS-COAD: Categories entailed in the data dictionary of an Information System
If a SIS is to be most effective for a particular language group, it must
embody (to the greatest extent possible) the categorizations of the domain
of interest which are held in common by that group, as revealed through
an ethnographic study (as part of a participative information system
development methodology). This would be achieved through its data
dictionary and accompanying documentation explaining the meaning of
the terms used and the user activities that are supported by the system
functionality.
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Figure 1 - Some relationships among COADS
This initial set of COADs is in no sense claimed to be complete, or even necessarily the
best formulation. Rather, it is offered as a first step in developing an understanding of
how this approach may overcome some of the difficulties of interdisciplinary discussion
of key aspects of ontology. Some interrelations between the COADs are depicted in
Figure 1.
G-COADs and U-COADs cannot be studied directly but need to be inferred from PCOADs and L-COADS, preferably via E-COADs. The COADs refer to categorization
of aspects of the domain of interest in terms of (inherent) properties and/or attributes
(assigned by an agent, either because of, or irrespective of, one or more of their
properties). There is a continuum of the extent to which things in the world categorize
themselves, and how much we intervene to categorize them, because of limitations in
their kindedness and/or the perceptibility of their kindedness and/or affordances. High
'natural' kindedness would be expected to produce non-collusive unanimity of
categorization (perhaps achieving a U-COAD). Our process of applying categories is
influenced by language and other aspects of culture. Words play an important role in
concept formation, learning, recognition and communication.
The "tiers of ontology" proposed by Frank (2001) may be seen as an alternative
approach to the use of the COADs framework. The tiers are as follows:
Tier 0: human-independent reality;
Tier 1: observations of physical world;
Tier 2: objects with properties;
Tier 3: social reality;
Tier 4: subjective knowledge.
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We believe that the COADs framework is more comprehensive and explicit about
where the conceptualizations come from and reside. They allow for the process of SIS
development to be more adequately tracked and described.
Example Use of COADs:
The Federal Court handed down a decision on the 3rd July, 2003 recognizing the native
title rights of the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi peoples of Western Australia's west
Pilbara region. "The Court found that the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi peoples hold nonexclusive native title rights over parts of their claim area. These rights relate to access;
ritual and ceremony; camping, hunting and foraging; fishing in inter-tidal or river
waters; taking of bush medicine, bush tucker, fauna, flora and water; taking of ochre;
cooking and lighting of fires for cooking purposes, and the protecting and caring for
sites and objects" (NNTT, 2003). This recent decision is expected to lead to an
enhanced joint management agreement (Walsh and Mitchell, 2002) covering landuse
and environmental issues for the Millstream National Park, including very significant
sacred sites in the Jindawarrina area. Such an agreement would be facilitated by
interoperable companion SIS (or complementary layers within one SIS), one using
English terminology and the AUSLIG feature codes (AUSLIG, 2003) and the other
using Yindjibarndi terms for landscape features (Mark and Turk, 2003).
In order to be able to discuss the development of such a (composite) cross-cultural SIS it
is necessary to refer to the requirements for feature categorizations in the data
dictionaries (IS-COAD) in a formal manner. One requirement is that the SIS
incorporates the way landscape is thought about in the Yindjibarndi worldview (GCOAD). This could utilize the landform terminology (L-COAD), informed by the
current ethnographic research study (Mark and Turk, 2003) (E-COAD). For instance, in
discussing protocols for community consultation regarding clearing of non-native water
weeds, it would be important to establish an appropriate mapping between the
Yindjibarndi term "yinda" (permanent pool, complete with "warlu" spirit) and the
AUSLIG feature codes for lake and waterhole (Mark and Turk, 2003).
It may be possible to break down the (physical) characteristics of such landscape
features into primitives (size, shape, height/depth, etc.) to establish the required
terminological mapping, or the differences in conceptualizations (G-COADs) may be so
complex as to require that each feature be individually (double) classified in the field.
Although this latter alternative may seem labour-intensive, it would have the added
advantage of being able to establish the proper name for each significant landscape
feature (e.g. "yinda") and to ensure an appropriate level of Yindjibarndi confidence in,
and "ownership" of, the resulting SIS. Especially if the SIS is being developed to
facilitate cross-cultural negotiations, its development must involve social and well as
technical processes.
Conclusions:
This formulation of COADs is offered for discussion by participants in this workshop in
order to test whether it has utility in facilitating research and development of techniques
to enhance interoperability of SIS. It has been developed within a particular research
project, focusing on what the authors have termed ethnophysiography (Mark and Turk,
2003). We hope that it will aid in discussion of the need for a way of dealing with
Paper by Turk and Mark for Pre-COSIT Workshop on Spatial and Geographic Ontologies, 23rd September, 2003 page
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terminology related to ontology in a manner with facilitates interdisciplinary
collaboration and is not restricted to any particular philosophical tradition or worldview.
Acknowledgment:
This material is part of a project “Geographic Categories: An Ontological Investigation”
supported by the U. S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. BCS-9975557.
Support of the National Science Foundation is gratefully acknowledged.
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