Chris Partridge

Chris Partridge, Andrew Mitchell, Sergio de Cesare et al.

Our aim in this paper is to outline how the design space for the ontologization process is broader than current practice would suggest. We point out that engineering processes as well as products need to be designed and identify some components of the design. We investigate the possibility of designing a range of radically new practices implemented as data pipelines, providing examples of the new practices from our work over the last three decades with an outlier methodology, bCLEARer. We also suggest that setting an evolutionary context for ontologization helps one to better understand the nature of these new practices and provides the conceptual scaffolding that shapes fertile processes. Where this evolutionary perspective positions digitalization (the evolutionary emergence of computing technologies) as the latest step in a long evolutionary trail of information transitions. This reframes ontologization as a strategic tool for leveraging the emerging opportunities offered by digitalization.

Chris Partridge, Andrew Mitchell, Sergio de Cesare et al.

If one looks at contemporary mainstream development practices for conceptual modelling in computer science, these so clearly focus on a conceptual schema completely separated from its information base that the conceptual schema is often just called the conceptual model. These schema-centric practices are crystallized in almost every database textbook. We call this strong, almost universal, bias towards conceptual schemas the schema turn. The focus of this paper is on disentangling this turn within (computer science) conceptual modeling. It aims to shed some light on how it emerged and so show that it is not fundamental. To show that modern technology enables the adoption of an inclusive schema-and-base conceptual modelling approach, which in turn enables more automated, and empirically motivated practices. And to show, more generally, the space of possible conceptual modelling practices is wider than currently assumed. It also uses the example of bCLEARer to show that the implementations in this wider space will probably need to rely on new pipeline-based conceptual modelling techniques. So, it is possible that the schema turn's complete exclusion of the information base could be merely a temporary evolutionary detour.