Search

General ontology is a prominent theoretical foundation for information technology analysis, design, and development. Ontology is a branch of philosophy which studies what exists in reality. A widely used ontology in information systems, especially for conceptual modeling, is the BWW (Bunge–Wand–Weber), which is based on ideas of the philosopher and physicist Mario Bunge, as synthesized by Wand and Weber. The ontology was founded on an early subset of Bunge's philosophy; however, many of Bunge's ideas have evolved since then. An important question, therefore, is: do the more recent ideas expressed by Bunge call for a new ontology? In this paper, we conduct an analysis of Bunge's earlier and more recent works to address this question. We present a new ontology based on Bunge's later and broader works, which we refer to as Bunge's Systemist Ontology (BSO). We then compare BSO to the constructs of BWW. The comparison reveals both considerable overlap between BSO and BWW, as well as substantial differences. From this comparison and the initial exposition of BSO, we provide suggestions for further ontology studies and identify research questions that could provide a fruitful agenda for future scholarship in conceptual modeling and other areas of information technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provenance is becoming increasingly important as more and more people are using data that they themselves did not generate. In the last decade, significant efforts have been directed toward developing generic, shared data provenance ontologies that support the interoperability of provenance across systems. An issue that is impeding the use of such provenance ontologies is that a generic provenance ontology, no matter how complete it is, is insufficient for capturing the diverse, complex provenance requirements in different domains. In this paper, the authors propose a novel approach to adapting and extending the W7 model, a well-known generic ontology of data provenance. Relying on various knowledge expansion mechanisms provided by the Conceptual Graph formalism, the authors' approach enables us to develop domain ontologies of provenance in a disciplined yet flexible way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In their quest for theoretical foundations of conceptual modelling information systems researchers have turned to various disciplines for inspiration. However, the adaptation of theories, concepts, and vernaculars across disciplines has always proven to be difficult at least. In the debate paper "On Ontological Foundations of Conceptual Modelling" I have subjected the transposition of Mario Bunge's ontology to an ontology for conceptual modelling (i.e., the so-called Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) ontology) to a critique. Six commentaries to the critique have been received. They are reviewed--not with the intention of a closing argument but rather with the intent to structure the debate, to clarify some misconceptions, and last but not least to encourage the curious reader to carry on with the debate beyond the scope of this issue of the SJIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failures in information systems development have frequently been attributed to the application of insufficient or faulty information systems development methods. Some of these methods are concerned with the creation of conceptual models, which are used for multiple purposes throughout the information systems development process. Criticism of conceptual modelling methods usually targets their lacking of theoretical foundations. In response to such criticism, various approaches towards theoretical foundations of conceptual modelling have been proposed. They can be differentiated by the reference disciplines they are drawing on. Though the relevance of the philosophical discipline ontology for data modelling had already been recognised in the late 1950s, approaches that have been built on ontology are a rather recent phenomenon. It was not before 1986 that Wand and Weber commenced working on an ontological foundation of conceptual modelling--drawing on the scientific ontology by Mario Bunge, thus later named Bunge-Wand-Weber (BWW) ontology. Twenty years after its inception, claims regarding the validity of theoretical foundations of conceptual modelling based on the BWW ontology have not been scrutinised yet. In an attempt to open up a debate, a critical review of the BWW ontology and its application in the context of theoretical foundations of conceptual modelling is being offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]