An ontology of computing

What is an ontology?

• An ontology is a specification of a conceptualization.• A specification of a representational vocabulary for

a shared domain of discourse — definitions of classes, relations, functions, and other objects — is called an ontology.

http://tomgruber.org/writing/ontolingua-kaj-1993.htm

Semantic WebConnects Knowledge

The MetawebConnects Intelligence

The WebConnects Information

Social SoftwareConnects People

Artificial Intelligence

Personal Assistants

Ontologies

Taxonomies

KnowledgeBases

KnowledgeManagement

SemanticWebs

Intelligent Agents

EnterpriseMinds

GroupMinds

Lifelogs

SemanticWeblogs

The“Relationship”

WebDecentralisedCommunities

SmartMarketplaces

The GlobalBrain

Search Engines

Content Portals

Databases

File Servers

“Push”

PIMs

Web Sites

EnterprisePortals

Pub-Sub

MarketplacesAuctions

Groupware

Weblogs

Wikis

RSSCommunity

Portals

eMail

P2P File-sharing

Conferencing

IM

USENET

SocialNetworks

Degree of Social Connectivity

Deg

ree

of In

form

ation

Con

necti

vity

Permission to re-use with attribution to: Nova Spivack (2004) http://www.novaspivack.com/science/new-version-of-my-metaweb-graph-the-future-of-the-net

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ontologies are the structural frameworks for organizing information and are used in artificial intelligence, the Semantic Web, systems engineering, software engineering, biomedical informatics, library science, enterprise bookmarking, and information architecture as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. The creation of domain ontologies is also fundamental to the definition and use of an enterprise architecture framework.

Why - Computing Ontology• Beyond the general reasons for an ontology of anything• Computing is a broad category of disciplines

– Computer Science– Computer Engineering– Software Engineering– Artificial Intelligence– Information Science– Information Systems– Information Technology– More …

Good for increased attention to special topics within the domains

Potentially weakens the voice of the overall domain

The ACM Computing Classification System

• First version: 1964 http://www.acm.org/about/class/cr64

– Three layer tree• 1. General Topics and Education• 2. Computing Milieu• 3. Applications• 4. Programming• 5. Mathematics of Computation• 6. Design and Construction• 7. Analog Computers

ACM CCS - 1991• Four Layer Tree (11 top layer categories)

– A. General Literature– B. Hardware– C. Computer Systems Organization– D. Software– E. Data– F. Theory of Computation– G. Mathematics of Computing– H. Information Systems– I. Computing Methodologies– J. Computer Applications– K. Computing Milieu

ACM CCS - 1998• Revised over time. 11 top level categories. 4 level tree.

– A. General Literature– B. Hardware– C. Computer Systems Organization– D. Software– E. Data– F. Theory of Computation– G. Mathematics of Computing– H. Information Systems– I. Computing Methodologies– J. Computer Applications– K. Computing Milieu

No change at the top level

ACM CCS 2012• General and reference• Hardware• Computer systems organization• Networks• Software and its engineering• Theory of computation• Mathematics of computing• Information systems• Security and privacy• Human-centered computing• Computing methodologies• Applied computing• Social and professional topics• Proper nouns: People, technologies and companies

Now 14 top level categories

Interactive interface available at http://dl.acm.org/ccs.cfm

Depth varies, up to 6 levels

An exercise

• Go to http://www.computingportal.org/cs2013• Strawman document• Go to (document open to anyone with the link)https

://docs.google.com/document/d/1MLdpEYfGdbfAtxhMX4-tk3sI7ckBYQoWqqN0Jq9PDKs/edit

• With a partner, choose a topic area to classify– Go to Blackboard and fill in the classification for your topic– Then choose another topic and repeat. Please do not choose both

at once, so that there is more freedom of choice for everyone.