OWL Pizzas: Practical Experience of Teaching OWL-DL:
Common Errors & Common Patterns Alan Rector, Nick Drummond, Matthew Horridge, Jeremy Rogers, Holger Knublauch, Robert Stevens, Hai Wang, Chris Wroe, University of Manchester, Stanford University |
| Understanding the logical meaning of any description logic or similar
formalism is difficult for most people, and OWL-DL is no exception. This
paper presents the most common difficulties encountered by newcomers to
the language, that have been observed during the course of more than a dozen
workshops, tutorials and modules about OWL-DL and itÕs predecessor
languages. It emphasizes understanding the exactly meaning of OWL expressions
Ð proving that understanding by paraphrasing them in pedantic but explicit
language. It addresses, specifically, the confusion which OWLÕs open
world assumption presents to users accustomed to closed world systems such
as databases, logic programming and frame languages. The experience has
had a major influence in formulating the requirements for a new set of interfaces
for OWL the first of which are now available as prototypes. A summary of
the guidelines and paraphrases and examples of the new interface are provided.
The example ontologies are available online. |