Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge Digest Version (2022) / Chapter Skim
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3 Why Do Ontologies Matter?
3 Why Do Ontologies Matter?
Pages 9-16
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From page 9... ...
But this evidence about research developments exists in thousands of research papers published every month, which may be classified in varying ways and venues, using a wide array of possible search terms. If one wishes to retrieve and consider even a nearly complete list of all clinical trials relevant to an adolescent with a diagnosed DSM-5 major depressive disorder, for instance, the task is nearly impossible without a strategy to link the inconsistent definitions of depression.
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From page 10... ...
Without such a shared conceptualization, it is difficult for anyone to draw on an established and evolving evidence base relevant to this particular domain. Although this example highlights the predicament of a busy mental health professional, researchers and others seeking literature relevant to many kinds of questions in many domains routinely face similar dilemmas.
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From page 11... ...
for disruptive behavior grew sharply in the period examined, the number of new practice elements remained relatively flat over the last half of the period. In other words, many new manuals have been developed and tested, but these manuals largely appear to be new combinations of existing practice elements, rather than conceptually distinctive approaches to intervention.
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From page 12... ...
In short, a lack of ontological clarity makes it difficult to perceive significant trends and highlight valuable developing knowledge about effective combinations of practice elements. This example also illustrates two key challenges that are relevant to most, if not all, areas of behavioral science.
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From page 13... ...
Ontologies can help by providing a framework for accurately describing and comparing conclusions, describing how measures are related to conclusions, identifying moderating variables, and distinguishing domains or regimes in which relationships hold from those in which they do not. A basic function of science is labeling and classifying the phenomena that are observed and organizing them for study in a particular domain.
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From page 14... ...
As ontology developers encode the classifications that they are aware of directly into the structure of an ontology, they also discover new classifications through the application of reasoning systems that determine the logical implications of the ways in which the entities have been defined. An ontology would allow investigators to test hypotheses derived from the logical structure of individual constructs and their relations, though as far as the committee could determine, this benefit of developing and using ontologies has yet to be widely realized in the behavioral sciences.
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From page 15... ...
Shared terms provide a standard mechanism for workers from many different stakeholder groups -- who have their own customs, their own jargon, their own world views -- to embrace a piece of common information and to act on it accordingly. Data Integration Shared ontologies make it possible for researchers to integrate their data with those of other scientists, pooling results and making it possible to explore hypotheses with larger sample sizes and different sets of subjects.
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From page 16... ...
The formal specification of both the essential elements of a scientific discipline and the key relationships among them enables its practitioners to clarify their shared world view and to communicate with one another with the clarity needed to advance scientific knowledge. CONCLUSION 1: By establishing a controlled vocabulary of shared terms for the concepts and phenomena of interest within a particular domain and a classification of those entities, ontologies have three primary benefits: • They open up opportunities to improve care and services, based on the work of investigators studying disorders who use a common language, shared measures, and the same logical structure for designing their specific studies.
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