Reflections on ontologies

2019-06-16

Several months ago, I attended a workshop on ontologies. For the longest time since I started my graduate program, I always had troubles understanding what you do with ontologies and what makes them useful.

Generally know that they encode meaning between the elements within. But then I was stuck on the, “What next?” I know it doesn’t just sit there. After attending this workshop on ontologies, I have a better intuition about what makes these things useful.

Basic definitions

First off, the ontologies I am talking about are the information science ones, and not the metaphysical definition.

In computer science and information science, an ontology encompasses a representation, formal naming and definition of the categories, properties and relations between the concepts, data and entities that substantiate one, many or all domains of discourse.

Insights on usefulness

I’m retrospectively reflecting on my “ah-ha” moment, but I think the table shown in this section was very helpful in revealing who ontologies are useful.

For example, if you want to encode an investigator’s name in some data file, one could simply use the investigator’s initials or names. This can become messy, especially if multiple people work on this file and may become inconsistent.

This is where ontologies can come in handy. A better format to encode investigators into a file is to use ORCiD, a persistent digital identifier. This makes it better because there is a controlled vocabulary for which to describe these individuals. This allows less room for mistakes and ambiguity in filling in this information. Additionally, this allows to easier sharing of this data if you were to share it with colleagues.

In relation to microbiome research

In the microbiome world that I currently exist in, there exists the Earth Microbiome Project (EMP), an initiative to “characterize global microbial taxonomic and functional diversity for the benefit of the planet and humankind.”

The EMP has built its own ontology, namely the EMP Ontology. There is a table with example samples and how they might be classified. This shared vocabulary to describe samples allow more effective comparisons and inference on these samples.

Summary

My big “ah-ha” moment for ontologies was that it is a controlled vocabulary for which to describe and share data efficiently. There may be more uses for ontologies, but for now, this is a good intuition for myself as to why ontologies are useful. This is especially true with all this data being generated around us in biomedicine and technology.