This was the key idea behind getting involved in Ontologies in the first place. Can an astronomical ontology be used to assist a user in finding the resource they want?

Firstly, a definition of terms. By workflow, I refer to the way in which an astronomer will navigate the AstroGrid portal (or whatever interface is presented) in order to identify a resource which will meet one or more needs. This definition is in opposition to the way in which a user will build and record a sequence of tasks which will be executed as a single job: let's call this job control so as to distinguish the two (since the AstroOntology will likely be used in job control as well).

As I see it, there can be two ways of using an ontology in a workflow application:

1. The application is intelligent enough to know what various relationship types mean in the astronomical sense and can ask the user relevant questions after ascertaining certain knowledge. Note: that I do not know how such knowledge and meaning is inferred by the workflow application.
2. The ontology includes terms and relationship types which the application is hard coded to recognise as referring to workflow and from which it deduces the questions to ask at any given point. How such knowledge is added to the ontology, I don't know.

I suspect the second of the above is the lesser of two evils (from a programming point of view) so I would suggest we start thinking about how to solve this problem.

-- TonyLinde - 06 Aug 2002

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What about creating (or finding) an ontology for workflow then using the terms in that to map the AstroOntology to create an astronomical (or AstroGrid at least) workflow?

-- TonyLinde - 07 Aug 2002

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