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Supporting and Sustaining Behavioral Ontologies

Many individuals have worked tirelessly on ontological efforts in the behavioral sciences, but the behavioral sciences have not yet taken full advantage of the potential benefits of ontology development. There are comparatively few ontological systems in the behavioral sciences that are widely known and used, and those that exist have had limited impact. The developers of these systems in behavioral domains appear to operate largely on their own in identifying or developing the models and practices that might best suit their needs. Few of the examples we saw took advantage of ontology best practices or computational tools or advances. None was sponsored by a central professional organization. Most appeared to have been built because of the specific interest of their creator, rather than in response to needs identified by the field. None had a sustained source of funding, and the committee heard from a variety of experts that it is difficult to sustain ontology development efforts.

Organizations and institutions can play critical roles in the creation, editing, dissemination, adoption, and revision of ontologies. In particular, institutions—including universities, research funders, journals, and conferences—can create, perhaps implicitly, incentives to use or not use ontologies in various ways. However, the committee could not identify any existing institutional structures or incentives that directly promote the use of shared ontologies in the behavioral sciences. To the best of our knowledge, no university requires or prioritizes ontology (re)use when considering promotion and tenure decisions. Some journals require the selection of keywords from a fixed list, but they do not require any accompanying formal specification. Journals may also require that the data described in

scientific papers be made publicly available, but this is rarely explicit in journal policies. No U.S. government funding agencies in the behavioral sciences currently require the use of ontologies in grant proposals or other contracts. The same appears to be true for a range of different institutions and structures that support research in the behavioral sciences. We also note that many journals, conferences, and promotion committees favor the use of novel theories and theoretical concepts, yet they do not prioritize the use of formal specifications.

The committee recognizes that some behavioral scientists remain skeptical of the usefulness of ontologies despite their potential benefits. The committee acknowledges that there may be complicated tradeoffs and that too much emphasis on a common ontological system could hinder originality and punish some of the unorthodox thinking that has led to major scientific advances. What we are proposing, however, is fundamentally consistent with long-standing reliance on constructs, construct validity, and other means of clearly articulating ideas and hypotheses for rigorous study. A greater reliance on ontologies is a way of making those efforts even more rigorous.

Moreover, the committee expects that increased use of ontologies in the behavioral sciences would involve different and sometimes parallel ontologies. The methods for developing ontologies vary, and the creation of categories depends on human judgment. Differences of opinion should be expected. Especially in the near term, “ontologic pluralism”—in which competing or overlapping ontologies exist and are connected to one another through formal mappings—is both inevitable and desirable. Without a doubt, however, developing workable ontologies is difficult, though it is necessary in any scientific domain.

Taking advantage of these opportunities to accelerate the behavioral sciences with the aid of more semantically formal ontologies will require attention to the practical challenges of supporting the needed work. A pri-

mary—perhaps the most important—reason why ontologies have not taken hold is that the development and maintenance of ontologies is expensive. Despite the many efficiencies afforded by computer technology, developing an ontology is a painstaking effort. Particularly within the behavioral sciences there has been a lack of sustainable resources: ontology development does not usually lead to a commercial product. Some ontological systems have been supported by national or international agencies. However, continuing support for nongovernmental efforts has been limited.

For the behavioral sciences to benefit from the potential advantages of well-designed ontologies, an infrastructure is also needed. The committee recommends ways to expand available resources and incentives, to stimulate grassroots ontology development, and to coordinate efforts, with the aim of pushing for ontologies to be a higher priority in behavioral science research.

Agencies of the federal government are best positioned to provide the coordination and resources needed for this kind of activity, so we direct two broad recommendations to NIH and other agencies. Ontology development often does not fit within categories commonly supported by research awards. At NIH, the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) oversees cross-institute initiatives and includes offices for behavioral and social science research, prevention research, women’s health, AIDS research, tribal health, diet and nutrition research, and research infrastructure. It also includes programs that use ontologies, such as those on data science and portfolio analysis. Because of its vast reach within NIH, DPCPSI is in a unique position to demonstrate how ontologies can improve the way behavioral science knowledge is created, understood, and used.

Professional organizations and publishers also have a key role to play, and we direct recommendations to such organizations. The Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) and the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) represent most professional and scientific organizations in the behavioral and social sciences. FABBS promotes advancing the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior, and its mission includes training and fostering communication among scientists. The COSSA membership includes professional associations, scientific societies, research centers and institutes, colleges and universities, and industry affiliates.

Similarly, there are two major academic publishers in the behavioral sciences. The American Psychological Association is the largest publisher of behavioral science journals, and the Association for Psychological Science is also a leader in scientific publication. In addition, both organizations work with the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology to coordinate and provide accreditation for educational programs and in psychology. We call out these organizations because they have wide reach, but we hope that similar organizations will also take part in the community building necessary to develop and encourage understanding of what ontologies can offer in the behavioral sciences.

The goals of our recommendations are to strengthen approaches to categorizing and defining the concepts and phenomena behavioral scientists study and to develop ways to better leverage contemporary technologies in structuring knowledge about human behavior. These ideas build on what has been accomplished through centuries of attempts to synthesize what is known, as well as decades of research on human and animal behavior. The approaches we recommend have the potential to democratize knowledge about human behavior by making that knowledge efficiently retrievable and actionable by the wide diversity of stakeholders in the domain of the behavioral sciences. Ultimately, better communications within the scientific community and between scientists and knowledge consumers will improve the science of behavior, the way it is disseminated, and its capacity to ameliorate and prevent suffering. This report is focused on the behavioral sciences, but most of the issues discussed here would also apply in other domains, and the committee hopes they will be of use in the overall advancement of science.